Day 10 one busy day a few plastic fails

10.07.19

OK so I need to tell the truth about today and how time consuming looking for plastic free is when you are on limited times.

I needed Cream, sliced bread, yogurt, tea and digestive biscuits.

No Biscuits can be found without plastic wrapping and I needed digestives for Banoffee pie pudding as we needed to use up the tin of condences caramel. plus Banoffee was quick to make when you have a busy day.

Tea? I cannot run out of tea in my house and on the supermarkets shelves the option are not biodegradable tea bags, the only brand the I have researched is PG Tips, they have a plastic wrapper around the box but all tea bags can be put in the compost.

Cream, I had a option of buying it in a glass jar however they wanted £2.65 for a small amount and I would of had to buy two jars.  so a plastic 85p one was brought.

yogurt I am still looking for the alternative and my children need yogurts, so i decided Natural yogurt in one big tub was worthy and I would add fruit, make smoothie ice lollies. All these benifit from less plastic.

My 12 year old only like brown bread, struggling on the toast front and when this man is hungry toast wins everytime. so I brought bread in plastic however this bag can be recycled back at the supermarket.

The rest of my shopping was plastic free so I still did not buy the convenient normal shopping. I have just put my bins out for recycling and the waste is down by half a bin as I normally put two full bins out. Please remember I am a family of six two bins are essential. However this waste is also part of the June buys before i went plastic free, so I am hoping in two weeks these recycling bins will be reduced immenesly. I will wash them out tomorrow and show in 14 days my results hopefully of reduced to plastic free & recycling waste.

So I feel like I have let myself down today and feel very annoyed with the supermarkets not offering the option to buy plastic free for the above.

The difference with letting myself down is not the issue as my kids and husband must come first and when you are a busy mom feeding time sometimes has to be convenient. So I appologise if you are reading this and are disappointed but finding plastic free alternatives quickly is not possible well no just not achieveable.



this would usually be full so i'm really proud its only a third full

Normally two full bins go out for recycling

Day 9 summary Nearly Emptied The Freezer

Day 9

9.07.19

So the food has started to go down a lot, I have been out today and did not have a chance to shop.

Breakfast was easy
Omelette on sliced bread, toast and tea.

Lunch sausage and bacon sandwiches on rolls.

Dinner ?????
So I went to the freezer to find that we had absolutely nothing but some burgers then when I said the freezer is nearly empty my nephew states “that’s because we can’t buy plastic”

How true, oven chips which is my usual rescue meal with fish fingers or something that’s usually plastic wrapped.

So I need to get smarter on the shopping and plan every meal.

My husband and I went for a couple of drinks at the pub taking advantage of our adult nephew staying at ours to put kids to bed. Lol
Baring in mind the food issue tonight was minimal so when ordering the drinks at the bar my husband wanted snacks. Not one snack served without plastic so no snacks were brought he was going to resort to the pickled onions jar but he didn’t.

So on a positive note school end of term is two weeks away and noting that most school uniform has some form of plastic wrapping I decided to set up a school uniform up-cycle Facebook page.

Take a look

https://www.facebook.com/uniformup/

Liked this Logo on the google sight 

DAY 8 Bread dilemma & Summary

08.07.19

Today I have been busy and only spent the afternoon at home to tidy up the house, wash some clothes and prepare for the return of the kids after school. I don't know about anyone else's home but mine after a weekend is an absolute mess.

so my afternoon has been spent running around the house tidying up.

Dinner tonight for the kids was quite easy as we have used the left overs from Sunday and I served it witht the tiger bread I brought this morning.

Breakfast however was not so easy as the children wanted toast and we had no sliced bread and the fresh bread had all been eaten over the weekend. So this is possibly the most awkward change to make when kids are involved. So porridge was made for two kids & a omelette for the other with the new tomato sauce and a couple of crusts from the freezer that I keep for making chicken strips.

This is where I decided that sliced bread is a must with kids.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\I CAVED IN \\\\\\\\\\\




I so sorry but I'm struggling what can I to do on this one. £1 spent
we have just goggled this wrapping it's not recyclable but it is made from wax. Yea NO PLASTIC but
i'm looking at reducing my waste to landfill this is still a difficult one. How many bags from using this bread do I actually need to keep to reuse. I would end up with quite a few. 



£7.02 spent today on bread and croissant only one item (sliced Bread)

If anyone has any idea what I can do with the cooked food waste, this is proving to be the only waste in the landfill bin since 01.07.19 when this challenge started.

One thing that did go well is my nephew is baking chocolate vegan brownies. how will I ever let him return to uni after the summer break. his great at baking and one mans happy liking out the bowl. Lol

Day 8 Ketchup Verses cheaper brand brought in a glass bottle

08.07.19

The dilemma started at breakfast with the youngest child (8) and his omelette on toast.

"MOM THIS SAUCE IS NOT NICE"

so the hunt was on for Ketchup in a bottle

Ketchup

verses

Lidl's Delux tomato sauce at 75p



I was kind of hoping this would pass the kids taste test!!

It was the cheapest option due to the size difference

Plastic option Lidl

Glass bottle 300ml Tesco £1.45

Tesco 400ml plastic option

So the glass bottle is more expensive and has less sauce.

I have one possible answer to find and that is to refill my orignial plastic bottle but I am still hunting down a shop that offers this option.

I am keeping this bottle too see if I can reuse it
I hopeful

Day 7 The oven result with the homemade cleaner

Hi guys, no summary today as I have been out with the girls.


However The Oven

I have to say that I was quite impressed with this homemade cleaner you will see from the pictures that not all the marks have gone but this would have been the same result as a chemical cleaner.

After picture

Before 

After
Sparkling

After 

Before with homemade cleaner doing its job

Before

After

After

Before

My oven cleaner has ran out help

07.07.19

Day 7

Well it was going to happen some day the good old reliable oven cleaner is no more and I cannot buy it again as all the products this company sell are in plastic packaging.

It may be vegan and eco friendly but its in plastic

So what to do, my oven is half way clean. My Sunday??

I took to google there must be a website that can help me make one.

https://yumuniverse.com/make-your-own-inexpensive-toxin-free-natural-oven-cleaner/

Make Your Own Inexpensive Natural Oven Cleaner

from this

To this


I WILL LET YOU KNOW HOW I GET ON.

The ingedients I used today but once I use these up I will have to find these ingredients without the plastic, mixed them into a paste.

My oven before picture

I now need to wait 6-8 hours for the paste to work 

I will be delighted if it works on these I hate cleaning these things LOL

This is my oven light I have never seen it clean

One thing this challenge is showing is the state of my house and advertising deaper into my life style with you all. When I was applying this paste I could see the fat lifting and can only imagine when its wiped clean how beautifully clean it will look. I maybe hopeful here but no chemical clener has done this when applied. I will post an update tomorrow on this subject. I'm so excited right now thank you Yumuniverse for your website ideas.

Day six Summery taking on more than I can chew

06.07.19

FOOD HUNT FOR THE ALTERNATIVES

So this is where I start to think that this task is harder and less achievable to go completely plastic free. I went to Lidl yesterday and took photos of some of the alternative options to my weekly shop that I know my household cannot do without. Again this is only one suprmarket others may offer more options, this is also where I will struggle though. I have 3 kids, a husband, a 18 year old nephew and myself and we all have our habits of how we eat certain foods. Sausage sandwich the kids love ketchup for instance and chocolate spread is a total must. So how far do I go??? Chocolate spread plastic lid?
The one thing i'm also noticing is that to complete this task of a plastic free home Lidl and Aldi offer the best prices to save money, some of the alternatives will need these extra pennies to buy, therefore shopping in Lidl/Aldi they offer the cheaper branded items saving and replacing the pennies that I will need to spend on plastic free alternatives elsewhere.
The elsewhere comment is the one that makes this challenge become hard work as I am finding that I will not be able to do my weekly shop under one roof meaning time, travel and organisation is needed to pull off my shop. The time issue is definatly going to be the hardest one due to everyday commitments and I can now understand why many people would just go for the convienence shop. Driving to different shops more miles, more petrol, more damage and more money. With the impact cars have on the environment with regards to the climate emissions I question this option as i'm trying to drive less. Electric car option then!!!!! More money?

Chocolate spread is a must in my house the kids have been snacking with fruits and a blob of chocolate spread instead of snacks in individual packets. Not sure if I can make it as hazel nuts all come in plastic packaging. The jar is also reusable and this is one item I may have to keep buying. 

Baking we use chocolate chips again they are in plastic in every shop. The alternatives are that I buy bars like these and smash the chocolate in to little pieces. 

The only sauce available in Lidl in a glass bottle, other shops have may have different ones but this one but I brought as it was there and our plstic bottle at home is running out. so for the weekends sake this was coming home. 

The glass bottle size difference is a lot so once again plastic is cheaper.
I need to find a refill option

Olive oil worked out more expensive in a glass bottle but this is a good alternative.

This is a big one that i'm questioning too. Yogurt all in plastic I have been making smoothies and ice creams with yogurt again saving on our usual packeted ice creams, lollies etc. Plus yogurt is healthy for the kids and a must buy as an essential part to their diet. If anyone has suggestions please help me and comment below.

Oh its just a great price, a brand the kids love. I can't wait to find the glass bottle branded alternative, see how this brand lurs me to plastic and the difference a glass bottle is going to cost. This is where I am getting more annoyed as we should not be lured to plastc because its cheaper.  

Cream another essential to make ice cream and homemade deserts what to do??? please help with any suggestions however I do not know how difficult making cream myself is. I would like the convience of buying cream due to this challenge now proving more daily essentials are needs to be made at homemade.

Lidl does offer a great selection of plastic free wrapped to chocolate, I know it's not Cadbury brand but the kids seem to be enjoying the alternative so this is an easy change to make.

Again any help needed on gloves as i'm skin sensitive and must where gloves when washing up.
now there is more cooking/baking going on I need gloves for all the extra washing up.

Squirty cream Nooooo i could hand back the plastic lid recycle it locally but then i buying plastic and feeding money into the plastics industry. What to do??? HELP



Jelly Nooooo
lemon juice i need it for dishwasher tablet making Noooo plastic

Glass pop 99p an absolute bonus thank you Lidl

Glass bottles smaller and more expensive but an option I may have to go with.

Came home and my nephew had made chocolate concrete cakes WOW his not gong back to uni I need his baking skills. LOL

Oat milk turned out great easy to make and a great alternative to goats milk that may also help with my food intollerences.

This was brougt for my family at christmas many years ago and one of the most used items in the kitchen. My children are melting the chocolate bars and dipping in the different fruits from the weekend shopping, i'm going to have to shop more in  the week to replace the eaten fruits.  Still looking at the sugar intake more sugar is involved in the packeted chocolate bars that they would usually snack on, Mars, twix, pinics,snickers etc. so again looking at the healthy option and looking after their teeth too can't be a bad change over.

My nephews chocolate concrete and my homemade flat jacks using up the oats from the homemade oat milk. My 12 year old has just stuffed one in his mouth stating "this plastic free stuff is ok you know" LOL approval of the highest in this house.