Happy New Year! As 2020 rolls in, we're all thinking of resolutions for the new year and decade. I thought this would be a good time to talk about changes in routines and habits. When I first started on my plastic free journey, my main concern was, 'what new habits can I build that will stick?' This is how I started to make changes a little at a time. Something to remember, and I will never get tired of saying this, is that you can't do it all at once. It is important to take things at a pace that you can sustain and make it a reinforced habit before tackling a new area of your life.
Lunches
When I first decided to cut plastic from my life I thought about starting with one change that would be easy enough to carry on with, and that was plastic free weekday lunches. I was already in the habit of bringing a sandwich and some fruit most days for lunch. I decided to find out what I could make my sandwich out of that didn't involve plastic packaging and I made sure I always carried it to work in a reusable container. (See my lunch ideas in Packed Lunches and storage ideas in Food Storage Solutions).
reusables
The next habit I decided to change was refusing single use straws and cutlery. At this particular point in my life I was on a long holiday so I was eating out quite often and began to see how much single use items were being thrown away in bars and restaurants. I invested in some reusable straws and cutlery and got into a routine of washing them each time I got home and taking them everywhere with me. As I am quite a forgetful person, I still struggle with this sometimes so I try to avoid situations where I would be forced to use disposable cutlery or straws. You don't necessarily need to buy a purpose item for this, you can easily re-purpose a cutlery set from your home and wrap it in a napkin or cloth.
shopping
Once I had a few routines in place, I started thinking about how I could change my shopping habits, looking for plastic free alternatives for every day items and where to find them. I found different ways of obtaining different things; for example, loose dry foods from the zero waste shop, lose olive oil, cold cuts and cheeses from the Italian Deli or yoghurt in glass jars from the Turkish Deli. I found these things out a bit at a time, and whenever I would find an alternative, I thought about how I could build it into my routine. It does take more preparation and time to shop this way so I started thinking about how to make it the least onerous possible.
At the moment, this is my shopping routine:
- two montly supermarket online order for heavy goods in cans/cartons (beans, flour, condiments in glass bottle, dried pasta in boxes, etc.);
- weekly or fortnightly zero waste shop for dried foods - I built this into my weekly routine by preparing all the containers in the morning, carrying them to work and stopping by the shop on my route home;
- olive oil refill (and others) at the Italian Deli - as needed;
- yoghurt and other essentials at the Turkish Deli - as needed (this is our local independent shop)
- two/three monthly online order for bathroom essentials and cleaning products
- for info on my grocery shopping in detail see Grocery Shopping.
In addition, we looked into sustainable delivery services for our essentials:
- toilet paper (Who Gives a Crap)
- vegetables (Oddbox)
- milk (Milk&More)
attitude and mindset
Above are some of the more practical ways I changed my lifestyle to be more sustainable. This lead to a change in attitude that affected all areas of my life. Before buying anything I found myself thinking: Does it come in plastic packaging? How can I make sure? Can I contact the seller before I buy this?
More recently, I have taken a step back and really thought about the abundance of items in my house so I have taken an even firmer approach, now I think: Do I really need it or can I do without it? Can I repair or re-purpose something instead of buying new? Can I find this second hand? Freecycle is a fantastic space to find second hand goods or find a home for your unwanted items without creating any waste.
The bottom line
Here I explained my journey in brief. Hopefully I managed to convey how much of a gradual process it has been. As I started my journey during #plasticfreejuly2018, I have read a lot about people trying to do a completely plastic free week or a plastic free month, but I saw this as an opportunity to explore different alternatives without overhauling every area of my life right away. I think it is more important to make small manageable changes instead of big unmanageable ones. I hope this was useful for some of you, please share your experiences in the comments.