A Month Without Plastic Week 3.

January 15th

Went to the butchers where I got the meet wrapped in greaseproof paper the other week and asked for some bacon. Real thick cut Ayrshire roll bacon fit for kings and the young woman went to put in a plastic bag after wrapping it in greaseproof paper. I said I didn't want the plastic bag so got a blank look and so I repeated myself, I don't want a plastic bag thankyou.... So she pulled a plastic carrier of the hook and put the greaseproofed wrapped bacon in it. Whilst waiting for my change i took the bacon out of the carrier bag and left it on the counter to the cry of Excuse me you have forgot your bacon.... no i haven't holding it aloft. Well the look of puzzlement on her face was a real picture. My son commented... "Dad you can't help it that she's thick" ... Got him trained already,lol.

The reason I went there for my bacon was because I went to Asda, Tesco and Morrisons to see if the bacon was available without plastic. These so called shops of convenience proudly exclaim that they have fully trained butchers in their shops but I wonder what these butchers do when all their work is out of sight of the public and all the meat is pre packed. Matbe they are the packers or maybe they are just a picture you see in the adverts...

Having said that it was "less convenient" to me to go to the butchers as it was a special journey today that I could have done without if I was looking at food miles....

Still here is half way through the month and it is becoming increasingly easier to shop without plastic, you just have to think about it and if need be spend a little more time thinking, planning and executing your plan. By doing so you are supporting local businesses, (maybe)getting a bit more exercise walking around more shops but above all you are being part of the community. I often feel that we are a nation selfish singles who get up, go out to the car, drive to work and then drive home on a night locking the door behind us until it is time to do it all again the next day. The problem for me with this is that you lose the conection with society and your neighbours. How many times have we read that a body was discovered in a house and it had been there x number of weeks and nobody knew of the death until the stench alerted them.

If we walked a bit more, took a few minutes extra to enable usa to talk to our neighbours or smile at a stranger you pass by or sit next to on the bus the world would be a better place. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for a bygone era, maybe it never existed but I know in my street people know who I am and that they can count on me to offer help if needed.

January 19TH

4 days since the last update but all is going to plan. I bought some bacon from Asda on Friday Saturday and it was packed in the usual plastic packaging. The sad part of this, and a salutory lesson was that it was about 10 pm that we went shopping so I couldn't go to the local butchers for the bacon. The sad part was that it reenforces the idea of these shops being "convenient" stores because for many reasons I couldn't get to the local butchers before it closed. I guess i could have waited until today, monday but we wanted a cheese and bacon toastie that night not waiting until mMonday morning for one. The local butcher lost business because of this and I gained a bit of plastic in the process. All in all my plastic so far this month is very much reduced and weighs around 230g if my maths is correct... yes i have weighed every bit of plastic on digital scales but the actual amount is far smaller in volume than previous months. A normal 2 weekly bin emptying cycle would see the wheelie bin stuffed full of all sorts but mainly plastic that couldn't be recycled.

By selective shopping and thinking about my shopping habits, by thinking of alternative uses if I have to buy plastics I've reduced this down to about 4 " in the bottom of the bin. We are approaching the empty week this wednesday so i'm well chuffed at that Because it means that the bin will not need to be emptied this fortnight. If this is a way forward then my bin will only need to be emptied, I guess about every 6 months but like everything it takes effort to continue this but certainly for a month this is the goal.

After the month I feel that I will be sufficiently "trained" in my habits to continue with the reduce not recycle pledge for plastics.