A month without plastic week 2.

January 7TH.

Probably one of the better days without plastic although I did fall at the last hurdle and it was costly on my health. As I was saying in the last post about the miles traveled to do the shops I tried today to use the bus and walk. I know I shouldn't as I'm quite ill when it come to walking but if you don't keep going then you may as well give up on life. It won't be long before I'm in chair so I may as well try a bit harder now.

Anyway....

So I got the bus from around the corner of my house into town. Well that started off with a dodgy driver finding all of the pot holes in the road and bouncing me all over the place. Now I'm no light little bunny but I got well shaken and stirred. Anyway got off the bus in town and I had a plan as I knew I wouldn't last long. Went to the butchers stall in our market hall and looked at the display. On the counter was a pile of greaseproof paper but hung up were a range of plastic bags and carriers. I asked if I brought in some resealable containers would they put the meat in them as I was trying to reduce plastic use age.

The butcher said it would be OK but they wrap everything in greaseproof paper as a start. I ended up with a good conversation about the environment and butchering and ended up with just under 4 pounds of fillet steak which 3 of us enjoyed as a going back to uni evening meal for our son.

So here I am carrying this fillet steak in my hands as I forgot to take my bags again and then I saw some lovely brambly apples, well an apple pie for afters just screamed out at me so £2.00 worth of apples in a paper bag and I refused the offer of a carrier bag and said why. The shop assistant, a 16 / 17 yr old replied "whatever" and threw it in the bin........ The chavs will destroy the future...

So I'm on my way back through the shopping centre and I'm really flagging now and the car is a good 100 yard away. I take a rest on a metal seat just in time as my legs start to give way and it looked as if i was sitting down but really it was falling down on the bench. Sat there for 10 minutes or so but the problem was I had had no food, a #1 cardinal sin if you go shopping and secondly it was right near subway's. Oh man do their sarnies taste and smell nice. Still my willpower was nearly broken but not totally as i got a 6" sub for my son after the pain had eased off but my head wasn't in the right place and the lady put it in a bag and handed me it. It wasn't until I got home after flagging a taxi down that I realised that I had the plastic bag.

After a good rest and some seriously strong pain killers my wife drove us to asda and for the first time I used one of their wheelchairs to my sheer disgust and embarrassment. Got some more dog meat mince and so that's another 5 plastic bags for the weigh in. I hope to get a metal mincer this month so that i can mince my own meat for dog food and thus know the fat content but also cut out on 30 odd plastic bags each month in the future as he gets one bag of mince per day. There will be food miles for that as i need to go to smogville for it but it is also a sausage making shop so I will get a sausage making kit at the same time.

As far as I can see it is going to be virtually impossible for me to not use plastic but at the same time I have only put 45g of waste in the bin this year which started yesterday after the first bin emptying day of the year although the 45g of waste includes the plastic where as by now it would have generally been well full and even emptied once.


January 8th

Took our son back to his flat today so took the opportunity to go to the Grainger market in Newcastle. Great place to shop for cheap bargains but all of the highest quality. In the old part it is row upon row of butchers and veg stalls, delli's and other little shops vying for your attention and money. I first went ther about 37 years ago and still love the place. I haven't been to Leeds in a long time to shop, only to see the scum leeds united take on my team but there used to be an indoor market there where you could buy like a whole pig or half a pig and have it jointed for you but it's been best part of 30 years since I was there... thankfully.

Bought a load of fresh fruit and veg [from Grainger market]and annoyed the line of customers as I had 4 large canvas bags full of F&F and took over 10 minutes to make the purchase. Poor son had to carry them all as well... all say awwww ! One woman was constantly tutting away and talking to the next customer about me taking time so to my sons dismay I made some really sarcastic remarks and she stopped whinging.

Went to the butchers and bought over the path from the veg stall and got some ox liver for liver and onions but sadly this had to be in a plastic bag as I didn't have any boxes with me. I love cooking and have done so for over 30 years now but didn't know until today that you cook ox liver in a slow cooker mode and lambs liver is fried. Liver came out lovely and tender after 4 hours slow cooking.

The secret to doing this plastic reduction thingy is to beome a boy scout and "BE PREPARED",lol. For me that means making a list, a route plan of shops, carrying cash and having the boxes and bags together.... Oh and the biggest thing... remembering to take it all out with me.

January 12TH

4 days since the last update so sorry for that. Been suffering from the dodgy back again which in a way is quite helpful for the reduction in plastic terms because I couldn't leave the house ,lol. Thankfully we had the basics in the cupboards so we didn't starve... we will never starve ! Before the back got a total grip on me I did manage to get to Smoggsville to buy a sausage making kit and a mincer.

I dropped so many hints before christmas it was unreal but did it turn up from Santa... no it didn't so I got one myself. It was expensive in that the mincer was a solid stainless steel one and a good size for £65 + vat and then the kit was £24.00 and a joint of pork shoulder and belly pork was a further £24.00 so the initial outlay was quite large but we got over 10 pounds of sausages made and have eaten about half of them. my neighbour, Bob is a self confessed sausage lover so he got some, wrapped in good old greasproof paper so he will report back soon. For me, my biggest critic is my wife. I don't mean critic in a bad way but she is honest in her advice so I take her council often and she loved them so I reckon we did ok.

Because the back kicked off I haven't been able to get out since Friday so the only plastic used was a 2 x 4 pint milk bottles. I managed to look in the wheely bin today and it's virtually empty with a couple of plastic / cellophane type bags from a pack of chilli's and some chicken. Also a tray that had chicken on. On the other hand there is about 9 plastic milk bottles in the recycling box but the rumour is that this credit crunch crisis has seen the bottom fall out of the recycling market so a lot of recycled gear is being dumped in land fill by local councils...

If this rumour is true then it is well worth doing the reduction in use first before the recycling bit.

Having said that I got a childrens wind turbine kit in the sales after christmas and used a plastic pop bottle to mount this on. Basically it's a Key Stage 2 kit where you make a turbine and as the wind turns the blades the small LED lights up. The reason I got one is that I'm a practical person rather than a reader and delegator so I needed to see in action the principles before having a go at a larger one to add into the grid. Anyway I stuck it out in the garden and was told the wind wouldn't be strong enough.... well last night we had 3 jumbo jets trying to land in our garden thinking this led was a runway light it was so bright.

I reckon we get enough wind so i'm looking for a non plastic set up of a wind turbine now....

January 13TH

Went shopping today but only to Asda. Remembered to take the shopping bags and my newest home made one, that's two now and it looks so much better than the first. Also recycled some brown paper bags from the local greengrocer to use in Asda and got funny comments from the checkout lass because she had to look in the bag to see what the produce was.... Don't worry a caustic reply is always on hand to put the infidels down,lol.

I was going to do chops and veg last night but changed it to ssausages and veg because the chops were in a plastic tray and clingfilm wilst the sausages were fresh home made pork and leek. I did buy some mince for my lovely Red Setter so that was two plastic bags but these will be reused to pick up his waste when out walking and 2 x 4 pint cartons of milk. I am finding myself becoming a bit of a zealot on this subject at the moment or really sad because there was an advert on the tv last night during big brother for a big store. Can't remember which one so I won't name any but it was advertising all the fresh produce and everything except the carrots were in plastic bags.... I'll be watching again as I feel a letter coming on....

January 14TH

I asked for some ideas for reusing the 4 pint cartons on another site I go on and so far there are about 20 ingenious sugestions. I'll copy them here over the weekend. Thank you my fellow ishers.
Got all the food for today so don't need to go out, thankfully as it's bitter cold and freezing ice up here.