Inspiration: No Plastic 2007

Another blog I came across recently is EnviroWoman at Living Plastic Free in 2007. She has taken a pledge to buy no new plastic in 2007, and is doing amazingly well.

It inspired me to have a much closer look at what I was buying when I went out to the local shops for groceries etc this morning. Wow! I knew the situation was bad due to my continuing attempts to reduce our plastic waste, but this morning, out of the eleven products I bought, ALL eleven contained plastic of some description :-( Butter, milk, free-range chicken, vegetarian "bacon" rashers, even the Safe brand toilet paper (normally wrapped in paper) was sold out so I had to buy another (100% recycled) brand, but it too was wrapped in plastic. The organic carrots were in a plastic bag and even the organic bananas I wanted to buy came on a foam tray, wrapped in plastic wrap! I gave up and left with only about half the items I was going to buy because I was so discouraged, lol.

So as an experiment,and part of my Low Impact Week preparations I am going to record everything that somes into my house for the next week, which should be interesting? I'm also going to record where they came from to get a better idea of just how "local" we are buying.

Incidentally, if you want to read more about why plastic is such a horrendous environmental hazard, check out this article by Susan Casey, Plastic Ocean, at Best Life Magazine. It contains some pretty confronting photos and disgusting statistics about the state of our oceans, so if you need some extra incentive, I highly recommend you read it! (Thanks to Geoff at ALS for the link.)