A Simpler Life 2018

fuddle

maryb wrote: »

I am hoping to simplify the amount of plastic I use next year. Those pictures of great swathes of plastic in the Pacific are horrifying and I hate the thought of wildlife suffering.

But it's so ubiquitous. When you stop to think it's almost overwhelming. But a couple of random things I'm doing

I've stopped using sea salt as it seems to be contaminated with microplastics. Gone back to ordinary rock salt for cooking and will try Himalayan pink salt for flavour. I've seen lots in T K Maxx just need to remember to pick some up when I'm in town.

When my current microfibre cloths wear out, I won't replace them as they are a big source of microplastic contamination and they have to be washed so often. I find cotton facecloths (3 for£1 from Wilko) to be just as effective. In the meantime I might hunt down one of those washing bags that traps the fibres.

Apparently washing powder causes more microfibres to be shed than laundry liquid. But liquid comes in plastic bottles whereas washing powder comes in cardboard boxes which can be recycled more easily. And my repair man says powder is better. I know some people swear by homemade 'gloop', might try that, at least for delicates

I use a lot of Ecover products because they don't set me coughing like other cleaning stuff. I used to be able to get the bottles refilled at a farmers' market but it's quite far away and not very environmentally friendly to make a special trip so will look out for more local sources of refills.

I am going back to loose tea and DH has started grinding coffee beans fresh each time he makes a cup. His coffee machine doesn't use Nespresso type pods (which seem hugely wasteful to me) rather he has a choice of pods which are like tea bags or fresh ground coffee. Apparently teabags and coffee pods like his are anything up to 25% plastic, even organic ones. I try and avoid storing food in plastic, always use glass storage jars, so a nice brew of infused plastic doesn't appeal somehow.

I'm going to try a solid shampoo bar although I'm not a great consumer of toiletries anyway - always just use plain soap and water apart from when I (rarely) use mascara, when I use eyemakeup remover on a cotton pad. I'm going to use my overlocker to finish some squares of towelling cut from Wilko facecloths so that they can go in the wash afterwards (I know cotton pads are not plastic per se but it's all about reducing waste).

Food packaging is a big one. I bought some treats recently from M&S and I was shocked at the amount of packaging. Most of the time I mainly cook from scratch, which helps, but still have quite a lot of packaging and most of it says currently not recycled though it looks like the same sort of plastic as carrier bags so I don't really see why it can't be dropped off at the supermarket bag recycling points

Does anyone have any other ideas?

I've learned a thing or 3 from your post maryb. Thank you.

I too will be making small facial cloths. Cotton pads are something that I shudder at every second long single wasteful use. If I don't like it, change it huh?! I'll use black or navy I think as lighter colours discolour too easily.

I too use minimal toiletries but I can still make progress. I am even contemplating dreadlocks as I was having a really interesting conversation with a lady my age who sported a stunning dreadlocked do. We'll see. I don't know if I'm brave enough to stand out from the crowd.

Teabags with plastic are the bain of my life. I don't like plastic because I like to compost them but aside from teapigs I don't trust other brands as it's hardly clear on packaging. The organic twinnings we have at the moment doesn't mention any plastic so it should not contain plastic... but I bet it does!

Nonnadiluca

When we walk the dogs on the beach, we always pick up plastic rubbish and discarded fishing line: I never think to take a bag for collecting it, so use a poo bag as I have them in my pocket. I generally fill and empty the bag into a bin four or five times per walk, mostly food and drink related items eg bottles, sandwich wrappers, plastic straws, sweet and snack wrappers. I can't walk past and leave it - every bit that doesn't end up in the sea hopefully won't contribute to killing an animal. I have noticed that sometimes other people see us and start to pick up things as well.
It seems that a simpler life goes hand in hand with lessening our impact on the planet, I have noticed that many of the posters on this thread are much more environmentally aware than the average person. Simplify and save the world!!

moneyistooshorttomention

I've long carried around a fold-up shopping bag in my handbag - way back before plastic bags became chargeable. So recommend having it in handbag as automatically as purse/diary/phone are. So that's what I use if picking up more than 1 or 2 stray bits of rubbish. There is one heck of a lot of litter around here generally - but I do do things like picking up litter on beaches/countryside anyway and feel I've "paid my dues" if I pick up a few bits each time.

Quick google later on Tesco website and was astonished how many of the tea choices come in teabag form - though did get to a PG Tips one that specifically says its loose. Will be some time before I'll be buying tea again (as I only keep it in for other people) - but will remember that.

Have no idea whether my Twinings fruit teas have any plastic in the wrapping or no.

There's two things I struggle with - I do find ziplock plastic bags very useful. I wash and re-use them as many times as possible I know - but wondering what could be used instead of them. I know one can put things like frozen fruit, for instance, into the plastic food containers I have anyway. But some stuff - eg my loaves of home-made bread are rather more problematic.

The other thing is that it's harder to buy organic fruit and veg. loose than it is to get more conventional stuff loose. I guess the supermarkets are even more prone to put a load of wrapping around the organic produce - because they're probably even more aware than I am just how many would try and pass off loose organic produce as loose conventional produce in order to save themselves money at everyone else's expense. So I'm okay for buying it loose at a health food shop or farmers shop/market - but that's not necessarily possible.

maryb

lakeland used to do gauze bags you could take to the supermarket to bag up loose fruit and veg rather than using plastic bags. Probably easy enough to make with some polyester organza off the market fabric stall. I know polyester is effectively plastic, but at least it would be reused constantly

Nonnadiluca

I use drawstring bags that I have made from a piece of old voile curtain which I take to the supermarket and the greengrocer. It's easy for the checkout operator to see what's inside, they are so lightweight that they don't affect the produce weight and they're easy to wash. They also didn't cost anything as I had the fabric anyway. I thought I would get odd looks and comments but every comment I've had has been positive.

Brambleberry

I'm with you on the cloths maryb - I still have some microfibre cloths - they are good for cleaning painted textured wallpaper and upvc window seals, but mostly I use the ikea baby flannels and have done for about the last 14 years - some in my stash are probably older as they did actually get used as face cloths first!

I have finally caved and ordered a new freezer, ours is limping along very noisily, so have settled on one with slightly lower capacity, but that is frost free. Now I have a week of trying to use up as much as possible so I can pop the remaining little bits into my neighbour's freezer the day before. Still this means I can simplify a fair bit and start almost from scratch on freezer planning, there are only two of us so I don't need it completely rammed. I might even try a freezer notebook this year!

On the subject of beach waste, DP is part of a local organisation where volunteers take on a specific stretch of coastline to do beach cleans, they can do it themselves any time they like and group together to help each other out. The clever part is that the charity is working in the background coordinating the info on what has been done where / by whom and targeting areas that might otherwise be missed.

Aril

Evening. I've finally read all the thread. You sound a lovely friendly bunch! I'm trying to become greener and next on my hit list is to get a tea ball so that I can switch us over to loose tea all the time. I do have teabags to finish up first though. I got round the fruit and veg in plastic as far as possible by making net bags out of a couple of old net curtains and taking them to the supermarket with me. I've invested in a pack of Sugru so hopefully I'll be able to mend more stuff myself and am hoping to source a loofah for pan scourers so that it can be composted [a tip from social media]. One of the best things I did this year was to start volunteering at our town's new Repair Cafe. It's great to meet with like minded people. As for litterpicking I do it quite often and then recycle what I can from what I've collected.
My big aim this year is to spend my time more fruitfully [I need to be more disciplined on social media]. I enjoy my bit of blogging I do, but I've just joined an informal reading group in the real world to get me reading more.
Arilx

RicardaRacoon

Evening folks

Lovely to see the tread growing!

Dizzy Imp, enjoy being back in the house!

Beach waste... I try to pick up a few bits every time I'm at a beach and sometimes do the same on "regular" walks. I lately picked up everything I saw on the last maybe 250 metres home from a walk, I ended up with about 15 things and these were only the most obvious and easy to reach ones... Needless to say about half of them were within 10 metres of a bin....

I try to avoid plastic packaging, but I am guilty of buying things like sweets that are wrapped in insane amounts of plastic and I have a coffee maching with capsules. But since I am a teadrinker who only has coffee at home for visitors I never got through coffee quick enough, so I guess the plastic on the capsules has the same impact on the environement than throwing half of the cofffee beans I buy away.
But I try to buy fruit/veg lose and always have some reusable bags for fruit, veg or bread in my shopping bag plus a reusable shopping bag in my handbag. I use a lot of products from Lu$h like solid shampoo or face cream in plastic pots that get recycled.
I still use plastic bags sometimes to freezer stuff in, but everything that gets into the fridge goes into a glass or plastic container, so I don't use clingfilm or anything.

fuddle

Beeswax covered fabric for covering food items like hams and cheeses. They can be bought ready made or they can be made DIY style. They have been on my wish list for sometime but I'm yet to purchase so I can't comment on how well they work.

Didn't we used to wrap food items in paper once over? Surely it is easier/cheaper/more environmentally friendly to go back to those days rather than plastic cover everything? I don't know.

Well_Preserved

I have a wormery, so I empty the contents of DH’s teabags in there. It still means the empty bags go in the household rubbish but the best I can do unless I can persuade him to go back to loose tea. I can do the same with my coffee grounds. As I only drink it black I don’t see any point in the pods. I would like to move to using more bar-type toiletries like you get from L*sh but I hesitate to buy online unless I know the product & we’re 20 miles from the nearest store.

It would be good to find alternatives to cling film so I’ll be interested in your ideas.

Well I think our open house yesterday was a success - eleven guests & a couple of genuine apologies. We learned the names of some people we always speak to but didn’t know who they were. One elderly lady kept thanking us because she would have been on her own all day otherwise. For me building a sense of community is part of what a simpler life’s about. The only thing was we gained a couple of bottles & a box of chocolates when we were hoping we’d minimise some of our own!