Hello everyone!

Well we have been super slack with the blog of late......(in fact i don't know off-hand what number day we are even on!) oops... but not slack with the challenge. I guess it has just become normal routine now that it is not so much of a 'challenge' any more. Which means success! Its like when you learn a new language and then get to the point where you stop translating things and just talk and understand them naturally. hmm, I don't actually speak a 2nd language, but I have been told that is what happens!

We have had to compromise sometimes, for example, we needed cotton buds which usually are made up of a plastic stick with the two cotton ends, but I did find some wooden alternatives, but in a plastic bag.. I have learnt that you can't always be 100% satisfied, but choosing the better option is still effective.

I (Ceire) went on holiday to Melbourne last week and it was great. So much to see and do, and a pretty forward-thinking city. I bought a couple of non-plastic things while I was there, I have to admit... but still tried my best to stick to the challenge. Guy visited South Africa for 2weeks and did pretty well, taking his own bag when he went out clothes shopping, and made sure most of the gifts he brought back were non-plastic.

I think there is about 25days to go, and I have been making some predictions on how life will be after this 100 days is over. We will definitely stick to buying paper-wrapped products when it is easy to choose it as the alternative, and doing this has certainly enlightened us to products that are available.
We will go out and buy cheese for sure, miss that, although cream cheese is a good substitute -we haven't been organised enough to coordinate with Taste Nature on getting some with our own container.
I will still buy pick'n'mix in the paper mushroom bags, even if check-out chicks give me weird looks. And I will still encourage others to reduce their plastic use.
We will definitely continue to bake our own bread too.
Just remember if its not a number 1 or 2 plastic (recyclable), (or a bio-plastic) it most likely continue to exist almost forever! We can stop adding to the landfill, ocean litter and reduce our consumption of oil if we just change a few little habits, which as it turns out is not that difficult :)

Some more pics coming soon

Day 46

Here's some pics of the products we have switched to.

Day 44

Yay! I remembered about Philidelphia cream cheese.... it comes in a foil block in a cardboard box. So yesterday I bought some and made yum creamy tomato pasta. It has made my week to find a dairy product that is not in plastic!
And.. the package design is brilliant. They have used all faces, including the inside of the box for handy hints and recipes, so I guess you could even keep them filed on your recipe shelf for future reference. Mmmm cream cheese.

I can't believe we are almost halfway. It is definitely becoming second nature - both of us (separately) bought TimTams as a gift for overseas relatives and then we were talking about it today how we both felt like we were being really naughty and wrong by buying something in plastic. So this makes me wonder if after the challenge will we be riddled with eco-guilt every time we pick up a plastic product, knowing that we haved lived without them and that there is most likely a better alternative..??

I definitely want other people to try this, even for a week? If you decide to, let me know how it goes.

More photos soon :)

Day 40!

Helloooo
Whoops it has been a while since we last wrote. Busy busy!
Things are going well. It has gotten a bit harder recently as everything we had that was from pre-challenge has now run out, so we are truely living plastic-free.
We took our usual trip to the Farmer's market on Saturday, and I have to say I was quite disappointed to see more and more store holders pre-paking their wares in horrible plastic bags! Even the potato man who usually uses these great tough brown paper bags has swapped half his stuff to plastic, and our usual stall had 'conveniently' packaged up bags of vegetables. Boo!
So we only ended up buying silverbeet and half a pumpkin since everything else we wanted was wrapped. Seems a bit ironic that the more sustainable shopping option actually isn't.
We just want loose veges like in the supermarket, is that too much to ask? don't think you grow those plastic bags now do you..?

We also shopped at Taste Nature, where we got some bulk sugar and refilled our laundry liquid. It was good to be able to reuse our perfectly container again, although it turned out to be very expensive ....eeek. Next time we may just have to switch to powder which comes in a cardboard box, although this usually leaves dusty residue all over the clothes, and since our machine only has cold water to run on, this probably does not help.

We visited New World in the city which has a great butchery counter. They were using paper for most items anyway which was good to see, so they didn't mind leaving out the little plastic sheet.

I (Ceire) have a confession, I went shopping for craft supplies and everything was in plastic but I bought it anyway. Naughty I know. I will add and extra day to the challenge....

Day 26

Well we have made it 1/4 of the way!

Thank goodness beer and wine comes in glass bottles!

Here are some pics of the coffee we are buying. (KA stands for Kick Ass!)

Day 20

Sneaky Samosas!

We went to a potLuck on the weekend and decided to grab something from the supermarket on the way to go with my freshly baked brownies. We decided on a box of samosas from the chilled section. All was fine until we got to the party and opened them to discover an evil (and unnecessary) plastic package inside! Dirty little samosas! So the lesson is WATCH OUT, plastic can be lurking where you least expect it....

Also we have been trying to think of a name for people (like ourselves) who don't use plastic, as we predict a revolution - but need a name, like Vegetarian, or Pescatarian or locavore..... All suggestions welcome.

We have switched to a paper-packaged brand of toilet paper, it is recycled and surprisingly softer than expected!

The Plastiki made it to Sydney check Plastiki on Inhabitat

Day 17

While cotton shopping bags are great for reducing your use of plastic, it takes the same amount of energy to make 183 plastic shopping bags as it does 1 cotton one!
So make sure you use yours at least 183 times (that's once a week for 3.5 years).

Finally some pics of our homemade bread. The first try wasn't so good! Now we are on to wholemeal version, yum!

Day 13

Ok so it's been a few days since we were near a computer, so lots to catch up on!
Last week we went on a mission to find some coffee, so we stopped in at a few local cafes to find something in paper. We had seen some at the Farmer's market so knew it shouldn't be too hard to come by. We ended up at Mazagran, a tiny little cafe and roastery around the back of the Art Gallery. It had a great ambience and delicious smell of fresh roast coffee. On the shelf were giant jars of beans to choose from, it was like being in an old fashioned sweet shop, but with coffee beans instead... We sniffed our way through the selection and chose one (oh no I can't remember the name!) But we gotta say it is THE BEST coffee we have ever bought for our trusty little blue stovetop! And it was a generous 200g so should get us through the week.
I (Ceire) also took a trip to Lush to see which of their products come in friendly packaging. If you have never been to a Lush store you should try and find one. It is definitely a sensory overload, and you can smell it from a mile away. Good smell, that is! So they had lots of goodies to offer -shampoo and conditioner bars, serem bars which could replace packaged moisturiser, and little toning tabs that dissolve in water like bath bombs. So we plan to go there when our current stuff runs out.
This week had the added challenge of a trip away, since we are on holidays from Uni we headed over to Queenstown/Wanaka for some snowboarding. Before we left we headed to the supermarket to stock up on goodies for the weekend. We found that the bakery and pik'n'mix sections only have plastic bags (I guess so that it is easier for the checkout person to see what you are buying) and when we went to find the paper mushroom bags they were only available at the checkout. This means that if you are buying mushrooms you have to first put them in a plastic bag, and then only pick up a mushroom bag at the end (this is really stupid). But we got some and used them for our baked goods and lollies, and didn't get any weird looks at the checkout so maybe other people do it too!
So the weekend went well, not too many temptations, and people are generally accommodating when we ask for paper instead of plastic.

To answer the last question re. if we are spending less or more... it's funny cos we were expecting to be spending more money since alternatives to plastic are usually more expensive, but its been the opposite. It seems that we have cut out a lot of impulse and unnecessary spending (like snacks etc) since they are usually only in plastic, so by thinking about what we are buying has translated into how we spend our money too, which is an unexpected twist! I've also noticed that I'm eating way more fruit than normal, and snacking on carrot sticks instead of chips (Oh I miss you chips...)

I did make a slipup this morning.... I got a takeaway coffee and put a (plastic) lid on it. It was too late by the time I realised. First morning back at uni, 8am lecture so I wasn't thinking straight I guess ...whoops!

Day 5

Nothing to report today, another loaf of bread in the breadmaker as we type. The bread makes delicious toast, soo good and crunchy!

Here's some Plastic facts for you:


Over 1 MILLION plastic bags are consumed per MINUTE worldwide

Plastic waste, such as plastic bags, often becomes litter. For example, nearly 57% of litter found on beaches in 2003 was plastic.

Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.


Check out The Plastiki Expedition Awesome! -Thanks Jess ;)

Ciao!

PS Thankyou for the comments!
We don't have Bin Inn here unfortunately... but Taste Nature should provide us with what we need. And yes now we have to make sure we are carrying around a shopping bag at all times in case of any impulse purchases! Not too keen on the milk powder and I think it comes in plastic/ faux-foil packaging anyways.

Days 2 - 4

Day 2 presented no real change to daily living, except limiting options for a thirst quenching beverage while out in town. Pizza for dinner in a friendly cardboard box..... maybe this won't be so bad after all!

Day 3 (Saturday) we got up and headed to the Farmer's Market to get our groceries. We go every week so this was nothing new to us. Only this time of course we couldn't get any veggies in plastic, and also had to bypass the butcher's stall. Most things are not packaged, but the odd thing like onions and spinach and big bags of apples come wrapped.
After the market we headed to Taste Nature, Dunedin's 'organic store'. Its a great store with a wide range of organic food and even has a little deli selling delicious goodies made on the premises. They also have huge barrels of dishwash and laundry liquid so you can bring you own container and buy as little or as much as you like. This goes for honey, oils, and tahini too. We will definitely be visiting here to get things like rice, polenta, flour and sugar. We were wondering about peanut butter, since there only seems to be plastic jars in the supermarkets, but Taste sells some in jars. The lady also knew of the mysterious Port Chalmers' milk farmer, but said his cows are dry so he is not selling milk at the moment. She also solved our problem for cheese, and said we could come in on the day they cut their cheese and take some in our own container. So a very successful visit!

After Taste Nature we went to the butcher where he gladly wrapped our meat in paper. Hopefully we will go next week and stock up for the month so that we aren't driving there every week.

That afternoon Ceire had a second attempt at making bread, which went better than the first. (I think I was distracted the first time and got the yeast wrong).

Day 4
Nothing to report today since we had a lazy Sunday in watching movies. Guy is missing cookies. But we can make those tomorrow :)

Day 1

Ok so its our first day plastic free. Although nothing is really different yet. Obviously we have stuff in our fridge and shelves that came in plastic, but instead of drastically getting rid of it all - as in the 100mile Challenge - we would just let it run out normally and then have to find an alternative then. And no we didn't sneakily stock up beforehand either ;)

This morning Ceire made bread instead of buying our usual plastic-wrapped Nature's Fresh. The breadmaker came from a dark corner of Ceire's parent's attic, banished to the great kitchen appliance graveyard along with other "this will change our lives!" purchases (pie maker.. milkshake machine..popcorn machine.. the list goes on..) But now rescued, Breadmaker will be pumping out its delicious smell and random loud churning for the next 100 days at least. It will take a bit of practice though, the loaf that came out didn't look that impressive, (we'll add a picture next time.) Ceire also baked Sicilian apple cake - YUM.

Oh, we do have 1 exception - Milk. This has no alternative to plastic packaging. "Cartons, duh." we hear you say, but no... these are lined with plastic, and so the combination of paper and plastic is non recyclable. So we deemed that PET (which is 100% recyclable here) is the better of two evils. On the milk note, there is supposedly a farmer from who you can get old style glass bottles full of milk, so we do plan to track him down.

Still not too sure what we will do about meat. Hopefully the local butcher will let us bring our own container, or just wrap it in paper.