Living Life Plastic Free Experiment (1)

As I was pondering in Is it possible to live plastic free? I am up for the challenge of trying to reduce the amount of single use plastics we use as a family.

I’ll be starting my Living Life Plastic Free experiment from today. I say experiment because I know it’s going to be tough and there is no way of doing it perfectly. Ever. But that’s the beauty of experiments, you try, try to try again, learning all the time and never actually failing!

Before I started reading up about it, the things I was most worried about were:

• milk bottles (turns out there are still glass bottle deliveries available)
• frozen veggies (the only type Captain Sensible will actually eat without moaning)
• grapes, cereals and other easy favourite go-to snacks for the girls
• personal care products such as shampoo, toothpaste etc

After reading, I have now learnt that even the things I thought were safe, are not!

• drinking tea
• jars of food because of the plastic lined lids
• wet wipes (which I was a bit worried about but now I know they are full of plastic – I use tons of them)

My Plan

1. Use cloth nappies (during the day)
2. Limit use of wet wipes and use cloths instead as much as possible
3. Buy meat from butcher (hopefully amenable to not using plastic)
4. Source and use my own bags for fruit and veg (from the market/farm stalls as able)
5. Get fresh bread and cut and freeze it in slices to stop it from going stale so quickly
6. Be a bit more thoughtful and prepared with regards meal planning and cooking. Bake.
7. Take squash and water out so we don’t have to buy those awful fruit shoot drinks for the kids!
8. Try to implement as many tips and suggestions as I can find from helpful sites like this and this
9. Learn as much as I can about the facts and figures of SUP’s (and share them with you my lucky friends!)
10. Try really, really, really hard not to buy chocolate and treats that are wrapped in plastic (this one makes me really scared I have to admit!)

 STAY FOCUSED!

We are going away next week so am going to find that really hard but I shall try to ensure that we use as little plastic as possible.

Here goes…….woohoo! I’m excited.

How about you? What’s your plan?