Eating vege without masses of plastic packaging seems really difficult, especially when there is time-pressure, disorganisation, and people missing the flavours and textures of meat and cheese.

Location:Leeds, United Kingdom

Name: Rhiannon

Week: 1

Personal Info:

We’re a three person household of young adults: one PhD student, one full-time worker, and one about to start work after an MA. We try and eat vegan at home (I was vegetarian anyway, which my housemates kindly adapted to, and became vegan last year in an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint), but also need to accomodate other food needs including lactose and wheat intolerance.

List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)

Some carrier bags in supermarkets.

Sort of – by ordering our fresh fruit and veg from Abel and Cole, most of it arrives in paper and cardboard, which has cut down the food packaging.

Total items collected: 155

Total weight:

Items: Recyclable
There are too many to list individually! As far as I know, these are the classes of things in my stash which can be recycled in my community (though there is a lot of unclarity around about what can be recycled, since ‘things which say on them they are recyclable’ and ‘things which were probably on that list the council sent which we lost months ago’ are two very different categories):
– bottles (1 milk bottle, 1 ribena bottle, 1 milkshake bottle, 1 washing up liquid bottle, 1 pepsi bottle, 1 lemonade bottle)
– rigid plastic boxes (1 marg tub, several misc. boxes from biscuits, supermarket fruit portions (sometimes I crave pineapple), some takeaway boxes (we reuse them but they crack after a while), 1 swedish glace tub)
– rigid plastic tubs (soy yogurt pots – there are lots in this week’s stash because they need washing and their cardboard wrappers removing, and we had a build-up in the ‘can’t be bothered’ final section of the washing up)
– lids (okay where they match the item above, a problem when they don’t)
– not included in count: lots of tetrapaks (soy milk, lactose free milk, orange juice, and chopped tomatos).

Items: Nonrecyclable
I don’t even know what some of these things are… here’s the stuff I can identify. Some of it may be more than a week old, we had a clear-out.

– wrapper from a card
– expired condom in amusing ‘Liberal Democrats’ wrapper
– medication blister packs (7 – from three medications, one each)
– cadbury’s giant chocolate buttons packets (2)
– environmental toothbrush (bamboo handle, nylon bristles)
– misc. bottle and jar lids (washing up liquid, marmite, milk – may or may not recycle)
– packaging from stuff sent through the post (subcategories: 2 jiffy bags, 1 plain plastic wrapper, loads of bags (12?) for dry ice (frozen vegan food arrives with these to keep it fresh), loads of cold-packs (chilled stuff arrives with these, ditto), bubble wrap (large bubbles, small bubble), and ten or so strips of a packing varient which calls itself ‘plus-bio’ (no idea what to do with this)
– leftover Peace Poppies from last year (I usually get 10, to share and because I lose them, but order more next year because the point is to donate)
– 1 plastic carrier bag (others are in the reuse pile)
– 20+ items which are clearly food wrappers (e.g. bag from organic banana chips, bag from spaghetti, inner liner from a cereal box, sausage roll wrapper, vegan snack bar wrapper, etc.) (And some weren’t included in the count – I think food (mostly nasty fake vegan cheeses) which went off still in the wrapper went in the bin like that.)
– plastic windows from envelopes and Sainsbury’s cookie packets
– a popped balloon
– packing tape
– a dead gel pen
– plastic-coated paper wrapper from a packet of Lockets (cough sweets)
– packet from a shirt
– wrappers from 3D glasses (we saw a 3D film last weekend, and could recycle the glasses at the cinema but not the wrappers…)
– 2 plastic forks (I do collect and reuse these but you only need a few)
– pull-thingie from the neck of a misc. bottle
– weird little clip-thingie
– nine items I cannot identify at all

What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?
Make a card rather than buying one (although craft stuff is often packaged in plastic).
Use a cloth bag and refuse the plastic carrier.

If I lived alone, I might try and cut down the food wrapping, especially on the processed vegan alternatives, snack foods, and treats, but as it is that needs to be a household effort.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn’t exist?
The 3D movie wasn’t so brilliant!

Balloons one could give up entirely, and use something else for party decorations.

I’m working on biros, giving up throwaways and moving back to my fountain pens, but it requires some reorganisation and practice. Even if I don’t buy new ones, my present aim, there are lots around to use up.

What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
I’m not willing to give up entirely on food, medications, clothing, toothbrushes, or condoms.

What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?
The biggest lifestyle change which would reduce my plastic waste at this point would be to stop buying food via internet ordering.

However, since I’d still need to buy food, that means either a) going over to what can be bought within walking distance – not vegan, often not even vegetarian, and still all in plastic packaging (and not in bulk, because I can’t carry it), or b) get a car. Since b isn’t a real option, and a is heavily impacted by my health (I have chronic fatigue syndrome) to the point of being impractical, I can’t see this happening soon.

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
Honestly? Nothing I’m actually intending to buy. I could promise not to buy another card in a plastic wrapper, but I wasn’t going to do that anyway, so it would be hollow. Most of the food things have already been ordered and arrived, so the packaging won’t show in next week’s list but it’ll still have been used.

What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?
My housemate was right when she said that this exercise might just be depressing. And that we need to discuss what options we have.