Plastic! The story begins.

Welcome to the blog. 

We are a family of five living in the UK and our aim is to dramatically reduce our plastic usage. I say plastic usage - we aren't really 'using' the plastic in the first place, it just comes along, in excess, with the food that we buy.

In the UK it is common for all food products to either come in a plastic bag, plastic tray, plastic wrapped or a combination of all of these and then usually put in a cardboard box for good measure, for example: 

bread, bananas, carrots, potatoes etc - in a plastic bag with plastic tag (not recyclable)

mushrooms, tomatoes, mini corn etc - large plastic tray then plastic wrapped (partly recyclable)

milk - plastic bottle with foil/plastic seal then a  plastic lid (partly recyclable)

rice, grains, nuts, pasta - plastic bag (not recyclable)

soya milk, orange juice- tetra pak (foil, plastic &  and plastic lid- not easily recyclable)

biscuits, cereal bars - plastic wrapped or sometimes plastic tray and then plastic wrapped (not recyclable)

Butter, humous, cheese spread - plastic pots with plastic lid (recyclable)

You get the idea - even our cucumbers are individually plastic wrapped, it really is crazy.

For a long time the massive amount of unpeeling of plastic layers and the amount of waste created just to remove food to put in the fruit bowl or on the vegetable rack has driven me mad, and then there is the piles of recycling left when you have cooked something. Our waste bin and recycling bin are always full and not buy choice, I tend not to buy processed, ready wrapped food and make things from scratch but still I am left with masses of plastic.

My son has been discussing going plastic free at school and has visited a recycling centre so this has prompted us to address the issue of single use plastic usage in our house. He has learned that many of the things we put in our recycling bin are not recyclable and that plastic is rapidly damaging our environment.

Disposable plastic is bad for the environment, bad for our seas, does not biodegrade and is for the most part pointless and avoidable, so it is time for us to do something about it.

We are going to try and reduce our plastic usage dramatically, I would like to go plastic free but I suspect that is not only going to be hard but almost impossible.

Still - any reduction in our plastic usage has got to be good right?