Day 11 summary it's been a succesful day

Day 11 Summary

So this morning started with a positive attitude as I had received many messages of encouragement to keep going. (Thank you)

Dinner was great fun we made homemade Chicken strips with homemade chips. All the items used were plastic free and the waste was nothing. The yogurts I brought today in glass jars were all eaten up and I have decided to up-cycle the jars into bees wax candles for gifts. One problem I came across with the yogurts was they had plastic lids which I did not notice when I brought them due to being excited that I found yogurts in glass jars.

I do really think that this plastic free challenge has proved that family time in the kitchen is defiantly more active and fun. Of course the down side is the MESS lol but look at her face.

 

I told the kids that we had made KING chips due to their length

seem to work I had empty plates in the end.

 



 

The only waste with chips is for the compost no frozen storage bag in sight



 

The chicken strips were lovely and everyone was eaten.

They are so easy to make too,

 I got the recipe from my 12 year olds cookery lesson from high school.

 



Day 11 I'm full of enthusiaum thanks to Aldi

Day 11

11.07.19

Yesterday I felt I had let myself down buying the plastic products I needed for my sanity as a mom and pushed on time. However today I thought of the comments and advice I have received from my readers and felt that today I needed to investigate Aldi.

Many of you have pointed me to Aldi telling me they have the alternatives the I require so off I went to see it for myself. Wow look at the picture below all these products bar a couple are plastic free.

 



Aldi I applaud you
 

You will see there are a few items with plastic lids and are possibly questioning what you see. However here are my dilemma's below.

 

 

So I gave it ago??? posh cups too just for you guys really lol

It's perfect Job done tea swapped and only 75p per 50 bags.

I have been using this brand and it's a perfect swap however ides how I can up-cycle the wrapping would be fab please.

My kids are on a school trip tomorrow and thinking of the alternative
which is crisps I can recycle the whole packet with
 Terracycle and the lid I will save and take them to a local
company for them to up-cycle them.

 

Yesterday My tea dilemma was looking for tea brands
that are available without plastic wrapping but also
 without the bags containing plastic.
I goggled this brand and its completely plastic free 



This is going to be my alternative to vegetable oil



I decided to buy a chocolate spread instead as the ingredients to
 make chocolate spread are covered in plastic.
I though I will reuse the jar anyway.



No plastic here kid will be delighted



Aldi offers one yogurt alternative in a glass
jar so I will see if the children enjoy them



individual 79p



in plastic wrap making them 67p each annoying and wrong



Aldi brand perfect



Hazelnuts needed for the homemade chocolate spread



This was the only option after seeing all the ingredients to make it were all wrapped in plastic.



Cream is still an issue but I'll save that for another day



cat food alternative as they are not enjoying the Whiskers tinned option



Yogurt in a glass bottle YEA



This is a similar problem Apple juice needs to be
 not from concentrate
and this was the only option I found.
I will cut around the lid and recycle it with my others.



great no plastic

going to give this a try with the kids

next challenge toilet roll



Aldi's only plastic free tissue might be a
bit posh as a toilet roll replacement

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