Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose & Recycle!
As we both cycle around and live our new and exciting lives on the bikes, we stop in at local food markets and main brand stores along the way for food and supplies.
Food is our main grocery items and when shopping and buying products we try to stick by these simple rules! We don’t say them going around the shop, but have them in the back of our minds when buying something with a reusable bag if we find ourselves needing one etc…
Refuse- This is the first and main thing you can do when shopping and trying to reduce your waste! You just have to simply say no! (harder for some, we know), however after a few times in the store you quickly learn what you buy and how to shop smartly.
For example if you normally buy dry goods such as nuts or rice which come in plastic bag, try to look for a store that sells them in bulk! The store will normally provide a paper bag which is compostable or burnable (or you can bring your own). This is a great way to shop for nuts and other dry goods such as flour, oats, rice and dried fruits. You can buy as much or as little as you need. Eggs, sugar and bread are also easy thing to find in paper packaging, reducing the need to buy hard-to-recycle plastics.
Another thing you can do, which we did a lot, was spend some time looking and reading the packaging of a product you would like to buy. We had problems when it came to buying cookies and biscuits! Most of them came in a cardboard box (no problem there), with a plastic tray (recyclable, but not the best) and then a further plastic bag inside (of which most are not recyclable). This excessive packaging was too much and we did not buy products that were over-wrapped like this. We ended up baking our own oat cookies along the way and still do to this day. This is more fun, a lot cheaper, reduces packaging dramatically and we know exactly what goes into our food. (In the photo to the right I am enjoying one our delicious oat biscuits!)
This “Refusal” to buy certain items because of their packaging is the main starting point to living a near-zero waste lifestyle. We have not managed to totally reduce our waste as much as we would have liked as the rules and food regulations in certain countries are making some aspects difficult. For instance, because we are cycling our bicycles and we burn a lot of calories and use a lot of energy, we need to eat fairly well and consume some proteins. We like to buy cheese, which is a good source of protein, but it mainly comes in a non-recyclable plastic wrapper. In Iceland some of the cheese wrapper where recyclable as their recycling system is very good, whilst in the U.S.A there was no such recycling for any cheese packaging. We did try to buy cheese from the deli counters in major and small brand stores, but food regulations meant they had to be cut, packaged and weighed by the deli attendant, and put in their own reusable bags or wrapping. We were refused on several occasions to have cheese placed in our own lunchboxes or our own zip-lock bags, with the intent to reuse it again and again. So with hungry tummies and deep pockets we were inclined to buy cheese in factory wrappers. We only did purchase cheese when we needed it and not in excess! In less developed and less strict countries or in certain shops in the future though, we intend to buy cheese and some meats that can be simply put into our lunchbox without any hassle.