How are we faring on the #plasticfree mission?

Sometimes you can feel as if you’re fighting a battle on all fronts: animal welfare, vegan, climate change, Brexit … not to mention, our #plasticfree mission. It was a bit disheartening to read a Guardian article a few weeks ago that left me wondering whether all our attempts at reducing waste and eliminating plastic were just a drop in the ocean (no pun intended) compared to the magnitude of the problem. However, if everyone thought like that nothing would ever get done, so we all need to make a contribution no matter how small. Yes, climate change and environmental damage needs to be tackled on a national and international scale, but we are each individual members of the worldwide community and we must all do what we can towards the collective effort.

So, to cheer myself up I decided to do a quick review to see what changes we’ve been able to make on the plastic-free front over the past couple of months. Turns out we’ve actually done quite a few things. Last time I reported on our #plasticfreejuly changes we’d ditched teabags for loose tea in a teapot for our tisanes. This is a permanent change for the better; we’ve now found another great organic brand, in addition to our favourite Yogi. We’d also switched to bar soap for the shower and shampoo bars, too. Once the little Solibio soap was used up – and pretty quick too, given its cost – I just bought some plain unwrapped Savon de Marseille in the bio shop that suits us well. (I think the French use it for washing clothes 😊 ) I also bought some reusable cotton bags in the bio shop and we take them every time we go shopping. So far, no shop has refused them and Grand Frais even gives a discount to reflect the extra weight. I’ve been trying to buy as much as possible in loose ‘en vrac’ form, though there are cost implications to this, which I’ll investigate in future.

We haven’t stopped there, though and over the last month or so have made even more changes. On the personal care front I finally tracked down the toothpaste tablets, which were posted from Germany along with a soft toothbrush, and they’re going fine. Interestingly, I recently read that Unilever were trying to develop a tablet-form toothpaste that dissolves in water. Maybe they should ask the Germans who are already doing it! Also in the bathroom, I’ve bought some washable face wipes from a French-based small autoentreprenneur business and these are great, no need for disposable cotton wool now.

In the kitchen and elsewhere, we’ve ditched antibacterial wipes (80% plastic) in favour of natural-based spray and piece of eco-friendly kitchen paper. We do have one pack of biodegradable wipes reserved for emergencies (usually dog-related!). Cling film has been absent from the kitchen for a long while and I use a set of silicon flexible lids on bowls when I need to store food in the fridge. We’ve also started using fabric napkins rather than paper ones. I bought some lovely ones from Etsy, though they were about twenty times the cost of a pack of cellophane wrapped paper serviettes. On our last trip to the bio coop I invested in a reusable olive oil bottle. You pay a small amount for the bottle and then it’s filled up from their en vrac machine. It’s about twice the price of a plastic bottle of cheap supermarket olive oil but more than double the quality. Fruit juice we have also started to buy in glass bottles, though these are difficult to track down – only Carrefour and Grand Frais, so far. But that’s one less Tetra Pak to dispose of. We could go a step further by making the plant-based milk (but Mr VV is not very keen on my oat milk).

On the rubbish front, we still seem to be producing a huge amount of recycling, but it tends to be more glass and tins now. The dogs have both swapped to tinned as opposed to foil sachets of food (they have different types) and the cat is about to do the same, provided I can get her favourite flavours, of course. It’s not very nice scrubbing out the dog food tins when they’re empty, especially when you’re vegan so not used to dealing with meat, but it’s a small personal inconvenience for the good of the planet. Apparently, both tin and aluminium cans can be recycled an unlimited number of times.

Finally, I decided to tackle the question of rubbish bags. We have four waste bins in various places it the house, but only three had plastic bin liners. We’re not allowed to put rubbish in the wheelie bin for collection unless it is inside a plastic bin bag, so dumping rubbish straight in is not an option. However, given that often the two smaller bags were often put inside the kitchen bin bag when we are getting ready for ‘dustbin day’, I wondered if we could just go down from using three plastic bags to one. So we did. And it works out fine. I’m still undecided on whether this one bag should be a bog-standard black plastic bag €1.30 per roll, a vegetal-based bag at €2.74 per roll or a fully biodegradable bag at €3.80 per roll for the same size and number of bags. From what research I have read, whether or not it is worthwhile using biodegradable bags depends on where your rubbish ends up – something I am trying to find out for this area, though I fear I may not like the answer.