Save the planet!!! What small steps have you taken today?

[Mrscog]

Following on from a thread where we were all discussing how we wanted to reduce our impact on the earth I thought I would start this thread for us to share ideas/motivation etc.

This is a non-judgmental thread and is about whatever steps you want to take to reduce consumption. None of us are perfect and we've all got to start somewhere.

My small steps today -

1. Morning school run incorporated as part of DH's commute.
2. Afternoon school run due to be done on foot.
3. Didn't bother going to Aldi as to be honest I have enough food in to cobble some stuff together.
4. Just used microfibre cloth with water to wipe down kitchen rather than dousing with chemicals (hadn't chopped any raw meat etc so no need to be too clean).

LadyWithLapdog That was me with the glass jars - yes, I use the lids that they came with for freezing. You don't need to let the food thaw before you open the jars; they open quite easily even when frozen. I do leave the lids on if I thaw the food overnight in the fridge, but I'm not always that organised - if I don't have that long, I'll take the lid off and defrost it in the microwave.

I have an old, battered clipboard that I put all unwanted bits of paper on (school letters, envelopes etc). I use this for lists and jottings etc, and it's constantly in demand!

Today I have ordered some disposable wooden cutlery. I can't take metal cutlery into where I work so as a team we get through loads of cheap, crappy plastic stuff.

I ordered a couple more water bottles yesterday - one for DS who needs a bigger one for football, one as a Christmas present - and have asked for a metal spork for myself for Christmas. I still have a plastic fork from Pret from my last visit to the UK; I hardly ever need it as only really use it when travelling, but can't bring myself to throw it away!

My problem is that I accumulate more small pieces of paper than I write shopping lists. I reuse anything A4 size in our printer if there's nothing on the reverse, but our kitchen drawer is overflowing with scaps of paper. I could really do with a bulldog clip to keep them all together, but that appears to be the one office item we don't have in triplicate.

Thanks for the tips re glass jars and margarine tubs.

i ordered silicone reusable straws this morning. They come with a cleaning brush. we'll see how DS gets on with them.

Probably stating the obvious but just in case, make sure to leave a gap for the frozen liquid to expand, I've got visions of cracked glass jars and lids popping off

Thanks for the details, LinzerTorte and Vitalogy. Sounds almost too simple to be true :)

Hold the cheese! I just picked up an "old enough to be cheesy & fun", but new/unplayed board game and mug from the chazza for a fiver.

So that is office Secret Santa sorted. woop!

I'm a bit funny about touching frozen stuff - I think it stems from a childhood trauma involving a metal ice cube tray. glass in the freezer is making me come over all strange.

In the new year pret are going to increase their money off for using a reusable cup from 25p to 50p.

Be warned with frozen glass jars - my friend dropped one because it was slippy...glass everywhere! Which her toddler then tried to pick up.... argh!

That's great news, 5trillion. Fingers crossed it will be in place at the start of the first week of January, as we always go to Pret at the airport.

User5trillion Surfers Against sewage petition.

Have also signed

I unsubscribed from a bunch of emails today.

It takes quite a while. Some companies apply much fuckwittery to the process .

A while ago I just gave up and started marking stuff as spam but this thread has taught me the error in this. So I'll plug on with a few a day.

I emailed yorkshire tea about their teabags. Here’s their response:

“Thanks for getting in touch.

Our tea bag paper does contain 25% polypropylene which is a food grade inert plastic that can be composted although it will take time to breakdown fully.

We have a dedicated packaging and sustainability team who constantly review what we do and what we use and we have made great progress with reducing packaging and recycling all waste here too. Right now there is no viable and reliable alternative to the paper that we use and until such a solution presents we have to use this paper as it offers the best solutions to managing quality in our product. The tea bag is inert and so compostable so for now this is the best that we can offer in this regard. We have tried biodegradable paper recently with our Kew range but it simply was not reliable and led to far too many errors, using this type of paper also requires more energy so in effect the biodegradable option actually has a higher carbon footprint.

This link may be useful and offer a little more information on tea bags and the paper used www.tea.co.uk/news/the-power-of-the-humble-tea”

Plastic isn't always bad.

I read somewhere that plastic bags (if reused) have a lower carbon footprint than paper ones.

I've just finished off a mumsnet chicken. It did a good meal for 4 and a stretched meal for four.
The bones went in with several other carcasses and made a big tub of stock, then the bones were ground up to go in the dogs food. Dog loves it, sat watching me licking his lips...

I'm planning to try to make breakfast muffins so I can grab a quick thing to eat in the morning instead of cereal bars. I also bought silicon cake cases instead of paper ones.

And I bagged my parents about buying single use 500ml bottles of fizzy water instead of 2l ones (yes still plastic but better) but the big ones "go flat too quickly". At least they recycle every thing though.

Swapped to proper butter rather than spreadable but it won't spread in this cold

The silicon bakeware aren't great for the environment by the looks of it.

www.lifewithoutplastic.com/store/is_silicone_a_plastic#.Wi0oplVl_IU

Below is taken from the article. That's the feeling I got when I first saw the bakeware in the shops.
We feel uneasy about silicone cookware. While silicone is durable and has a high temperature resistance, it makes us queasy to be heating food to very high temperatures in a material like silicone which has now been shown to leach and is not completely inert and stable.

Nina- I love fizzy water and am considering buying a soda stream, second hand one of course.

Yesterday the dc asked for a straw in their lemonade at bowling and I gave them a talking to about single use plastic, they are 3 and 5, so not sure they grasped the environmental concerns 😂. They were pleased as they got to have lemonade, every other kiddie drink came in single use plastic.

Yet they also say

"For now, we are comfortable continuing to carry products that have high quality, food grade silicone parts. We balance the toxicity information stated above with the knowledge that silicone is a high quality, relatively stable material, and leaching of chemicals from other plastics is of much greater concern."

IMHO still better reusing the same 8 silicon muffin cups than going through endless paper ones and their plastic casings.

I am going to switch to loose leaf tea once our teabags are used up.

We already only send out very few Christmas cards, but I have decided to stop altogether now. Might actually pick up the phone and talk to some people instead!

Using loose tea leaves now as a result of this thread...

I just made a pot of tea with loose leaves too.

I did lots of cooking over the weekend, but it has become very clear that if we are to reduce our plastic I'm going to have to stop shopping at supermarkets, or at least stop buying certain items from supermarkets.

Adds to the recycling bag or rubbish bin this weekend include:
Olive oil bottle - Plastic
2 milk bottles - P
Yoghurt pot - P
Some old food/soup tubs from back on the fridge - P
Olive pot - P
Chicken tray - P
Chicken wrap - P
Bean tin - Tin
Beer bottle - Glass
Wine bottle - G
Soya sauce bottle - G
Lots of paper from paperwork clearout
Cream tub, film & lid - P
Bacon tray & film
Macaroon tray

It's just bloody endless.

I bought a steak from local shop on the way home on Friday and before I knew what had happened (I was distracted by kids) it was on a polystyrene tray and wrapped in clingfilm

I'm going to try and shop at butchers and ask them to wrap stuff in paper. Only butchers near me as super expensive - I need to find one that isn't quite so premium.