First things first,
*bonks you twice*
Second thing,
This is exactly why, of the Three Rs, Recycle is the last one. It's in order of importance: Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle. Not limiting plastic waste is exactly why there are studies out about finding microplastics inside people's feces. See also: that Honest Recycling Ads video.
Thanks, that definitely woke me up
it's around 6:30 am here.
About the latter, we try to reduce that: we keep an eye on cardboard options in packaging, prefer not to buy single-use plastics when a reusable option is available (and financially reasonable... not all times it is though), and now that the baby is coming we prefer wooden toys. As for reusing, the few plastic items in our home are mostly second hand - we don't buy brand new plastic unless it's absolutely necessary, and we always check if there is a wooden or fabric option.
The real problem is food items. We buy our veggies without packing them in separate plastic weighing bags (In Finland, veggies and fruits are sold by weight, not amount, and they are weighed by the customer), but that's pretty much all you can do about it. Rye bread? Packed in a plastic bag. Cucumber? Has a plastic wrap already. Tofu? In plastic. Macaroni? Plastic bags. Cheese? Plastic. If you want to buy less than 1 liter of yogurt, it's in a plastic cup - luckily we both like yogurt so we just buy those 1 liter carton packs.
Yesterday I cooked pasta sauce with corn and vegetarian sausage, including side salad. Thinking quickly about the plastic waste, the ingredients in that only included:
- a plastic bag of corn (can be substituted with canned corn however, which is metal. Has more salt though)
- a plastic bag of pasta (some pasta brand is sold in cardboard box, but it is much more expensive and definitely not an everyday option for students)
- rape seed oil (plastic bottle: glass bottles are for luxury olive oil brands here)
- the plastic wrap on vegetarian sausage (no options)
- lettuce is wrapped in a plastic "cone" with a plastic cover for the roots (commercial option is a plastic bag of shred lettuce, makes no difference)
Where we could make a better choice, was basically not packing our tomatoes in the separate plastic weighing bag which I mentioned earlier. Usually people take the bag, and my husband also refused not to have one some time ago because he considered that unhygienic, but he changed his mind when we discussed about the fact that all those veggies and fruits are still all open for any customer to touch before buying and that this is the exact reason why they are rinsed or cooked before eating.
Also, he saw a problem in where to put the sticker that you get from weighing your veggies* if not in the bag... then I told him you can stick it in any other product or on your finger, it doesn't make a difference.
(* When you weigh your veggies, you get a price tag sticker. The cashier reads the barcode on the tag just like any other product. They don't have scales on the checkout. I don't know how rare or common this is but at least in Germany the whole "weigh yourself and the cashier just reads the barcode on the pricetag" thing doesn't exist)
The real disagreement in plastics between us are diapers. I'd like to use washable ones instead of those single use plastic bombs, but he doesn't agree at all. Single-use it is, then, but I am definitely using my submission on that as a bargaining chip when we discuss stuff like whether you need to have that plastic weighing bag around bananas or not...
