A new way of living

I have had a change of lifestyle and it has all been sparked by tea!

I've always been fairly environmentally conscious. Following the introduction of food waste recycling we downsized to a tiny bin because by sending our plastics to my parents council to be recycled, we weren't really creating any landfill waste. Unfortunately they stopped being able to recycle soft plastics and the bin has been filling up at a frustratingly quick rate. This wasn't enough for me to take action though.

Then I learned that tea bags have a thin plastic mesh inside them to allow them to be heat sealed. I love my tea and apparently this was the final straw. I was outraged. Suddenly my anger at how much plastic there is in our life was too much. So I decided take action.

Instead of the mile round trip to the supermarket we went for a four mile saunter, armed with bags, boxes and jars to do our shop. We investigated the New Leaf Co-op where I can buy most of the dry store cupboard stables in bulk in my own packaging (or in paper bags). We even ground G's peanut butter ourselves.

I was incredibly anxious about asking the fishmonger to put my fish in my own box but he was completely fine with it. We did have a bit of a laugh at my underestimation of what size tub I'd need though. Butchers again we're more than happy to oblige and we had a nice rant about the over use of plastic too. I left the shop absolutely beaming, no one thought I was a weirdo for taking my own tub and asking them not to use plastic. On to the greengrocers for loose veg and then a quick trip to the supermarket for things I'd failed to get elsewhere.

Success!