Backsliding

In the three months plus I have been in India I have been far from computers and so unable to write up as much as I would wish. So my backsliding posts have not appeared. Here are my plastic crimes for the past hundred days ….

Tea bags two boxes – unlike Twinings tea bags in England they do not come in biodegradable packaging

Soap – seems that all soap in India is wrapped up so I bought some in a cardboard box. The soap was in a plastic bag inside.

Water – two bottles when there really wasn’t any other option. Hated doing it though – I have not drunk bottled water for ever and I have of course got my steripen.

Vinegar in a glass bottle – sadly it had a plastic lid. Sometimes I have to compromise because there is no other option. I use this as conditioner and so it represents a huge decrease on the plastic bottle waste I  would otherwise create were I still using this hair care product.

Honey in  plastic pot. I actully bought this for the plastic pot – I needed something to keep my salt in. But I dropped it and the lid broke so now it has to go on my backsliding pile.

Octobers plas crimes

In the course of my plastic boycot I have vowed to stop using many things…but Pam is only human and sometimes circumstances conspire in such a way as to make plastic abuse unavoidable.
This month – I have bought

a plastic pen – the first since I took the pen pledge
a tub of yoghurt – the home made stuff went off and I needed a new starter
a packet of pitta bread

a plastic bag – my chinese take away came delivered in it – more on takeaways next month.

Another tub of yoghurt – there are problems with the yogurt making that need rethinking.

If you want to see how I have failed in other months  follow the LOSER link

Falling off the September plastic wagon

2 no yogurt cartons
I gave up buying yogurt and started making my own.
. All was going extremely well till we went away camping. came back to bad yogurt. As any yogurt maker knows you need a bit of live yogurt to make new yogurt. Mine smelt well dead. So I had to buy a pot of live yogurt to start the process over. Ate the first pot so had to buy another.

Plums in plastic
I got myself a lot of onions and green tomatoes from the allotment – normally I get plums too but this year not. Well I need plums to make plum chutney …so I had to purchase plums…. the only place? tesco. Loose? No pre packed plums in plastic. I could not use my produce bags as I normally do. Chutney/ plums? chutney / plums. Well thay are wrapped in polythene so perhaps I can buy them.

Find out next week polythene is not the most evil of plastics

August Pratfalls

Bought two packs of cheese from the farners market – was told they were greaseproof paper got home to find they were plastic. Why do I listen to those pesky farmers???

July pratfalls

Went out camping in the van – ran out of milk so bought a plasti bottle of milk – couldnt get anything else – NOTE TO SELF pack powdered milk for camping trips.

ANOTHER Bottle of milk

Ran out at home so why didnt I use powdered as agreed? Well I wanted the bottle. It occurred to me that I could avoid some milky problems by freezing a few spare pints. However I couldnt freeze them in glass bottles – so I bought a plastic bottle next time I ran out and used the bottle to freeze surplus milk man milk.

We went to a festival with my cousin and her children. They eat normal food ie plastic wrapped food which they bought with them. On the last day having run out of food I ate some of their cream cheese out of the plastic tub. I think that counts as backsliding.

One packet of pitta breads The middle Eastern element of the household occasionally wants food from home. It is impossible to buy flat breads in anything other than plastic packaging this side of the Pennines.

Falling down in 2007

Washing up liquid bought 2 more bottles so I could have spare bottles to refill – it works better that way – so not really a broken pledge more a response to being rather disorganised on the remembering bottles front.

6 pints of milk – but reused the plastic bottles for home made cleaning products.

Three plastic carrier bags. The first was a massive miscalculation involving massive amounts of shopping and bad planning. The other two were due to an oversight on my part – one plastic bag was to protect library books in the rain the other was accepted to facilitate the secret purchase of a present. It was then I realised string bags had their failings. A problem easily remedied by the purchase of a Chico bag

I bought one plastic tub of margerine because I ran out half way though a recipie and that was all the corner store stored.

One plastic wrapped leg of pork – bundled up before I got my bio bags out.

Bloopers January to June

2008 June

has been rather a bad month for broken promises

I bought a punnet of strawberries in a plastic tub. For 18 months I have bought only losse fruit and veg and put them in my own reusable produce bags but my fruit toppinghad gone bad. It was late, I had an untopped flan and Tescos. I could have bought tinned but it needed to be strawberries and I needed to impress. Tinned strawberries – ughhh. Felt dreadful but I bought strawberries in plastic tub . Have kept the tub and lid and I will use them for the freezer – it is a very good tub but still didnt like doing it.

November 2007 and we gave up plastic wrapped cheese. Only last week bad husband bought luxury cheese in what he thought was greasproof paper but was in fact plastic. Much reprimanding as I feel bad husband knew what he was doing and was just missing luxury cheeses. Wrappers went in the bin.

Pitta bread
Given up January 2007- needed for middle eastern food feast. Blatent breaking of pledge bought on by whining for kebabs and salad – must learn how to make pitta to avoid reoccurance. Wrapper went in the bin

LION BAR gave up plastic wrapped sweets in September 2007 – July found me stuck on Halifax train station no breakfast, no lunch, meeting to go to. There was nothing in the miserable shack they called a shop that wasnt wrapped in plastic. Sandwiches encased and drinks bottled in the filthy stuff. There wasnt even an apple or a banana. Halifax train station is vile. Not suprised people wont use public transport. The lion bar was the least packaged smallest option. And it tasted horrible. I blame this failing squarely on the shoulders of whoever is responsible for train station refreshments.

May
Sosages – how do you spell that word – needed to bulk out casserole for unexpected guests. Could only get supermarket ones wrapped in plastic. I gave up plastic wrapped meat in October 2007 – this is my second lapse.