Friday 11 June 2010

My new challenge

I have decided on a new goal I want ot reduce the amount of waste we produce as a family. Since moving to the house and having the compost bin I have found that we have almost halved our waste. I would like to reduce this further. Currently when I put my rubbish out for weekly collection we have 1 full black bag going to landfill, my aim is to reduce this further. I have discovered one main way I can do this as most of our waste is the plastic packaging that food comes from the supermarket in, you know those clear plastic pots that your pork chops are laid out in.
The main way I can do this is by not buying these products in the supermarket. I am planning on either going to the butcher or ordering meat direct from the farm with my veg box (which I am ticked off I forgot to order this week, hence the trip to the supermarket).

Have been doing a lot of thinking today, some products I buy in the supermarket because thats what I have always done. I don't think I can realistically stretch my budget to buying erveything from the farmers, so some things will still have to be purchased in the supermarket. I try to drive as little as possible especially now I need to drive the children to shool/ nursery everyday as the distance would be impossible for us to walk and still be on time, or not need to wake up at stupid o'clock! So I try to combine trips like going to the supermarket when I dro the children up, therefore reducing the amount of miles I would drive if I made seperate trips out.
I have a supermarket I prefer to use, but it is not near to the school so today I went to the one nearest the school. I found though that a lot of the produce that I know I can get british of, were not available from the UK in this supermarket. So I have ended up buying products with huge food miles.
Clearly this doesn't make sense, I drove 5(?) miles less to buy food that has flown hundreds of miles more. So lesson learnt when I do have to frequent the supermarket I will go to my preferred one and have food without the massive airmiles.

I guess then that there are 2 new efforts for me to make from that long rambling post
1. to buy less at the supermarkets thereby reducing waste
2. To reduce the airmiles my food has flown to get to the supermarket when I do have to go there.

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