Be Less, Do Less

 Hello lovelies! I am still looking at ways I want to be better in the new year. But as the title suggests I am still rather busy and struggling with time and energy management. 

The problem is that I LOVE to DIY. If I see something in a shop that can be made, then I  make it. I pride myself on making it myself for less. It is one of my superpowers. But I am also TIRED. 

And so part of my resolution this year is that I do not have to do it all, especially if I am doing other creative things. 

1. IT'S OK TO OUTSOURCE

Since the Amazing Spiderman died I have struggled with energy management since it falls to me to do EVERYTHING. I try to do a lot of pre-portioning foods like kale or broccoli so I can just grab-a-green-and-go. I had been using plastic ziplock type bags with a slide lock, but they were wearing out and I didn't want to just keep using and throwing away bags with such frequency (see number 2 on my resolutions today) and so I thought I could make some cloth reusable bags.

I wanted them to have that food grade wipe clean PUL liner but that stuff is EXPENSIVE. I found a half metre of the fabric on sale for £15 (Ker-ching!) and then I would need to factor in outer fabric, velcro if I chose to add that, plus time and energy. I looked at my life and just thought I can't pull blood from a stone. I am currently making storytelling props for the shop's Youtube Channel and rehearsing my lines, getting ready to film and then edit and there just is nothing left in the creative tank. So i decided to OUTSOURCE. I bought some on Etsy from EMMA MARY BAGS N BOBS. It kind of hurt my heart to let someone else make these, but it would have cost me that much to make them myself and now I don't have to.

They are adorable with cute fabric and are perfect for dividing greens into portions in the fridge. And they are wipe clean as well as washable. 

So what have I been making instead? An apple tree, a baker's oven (complete with felt loaf of bread on a wooden paddle) converted from a Troll Bridge leftover from a previous storytelling  and a piece of cloth that looks both like feather bedding and snowflakes when you shake it. Can you see why I didn't have time to make those bags myself? And that's OK.

These leads me into resolution 2:

2. LESS SINGLE USE PLASTIC AND WASTE

I am already doing that with the lovely reusable bags. However, starting this month there are changes to our waste/recycling collection and I want to improve. 

Previously our collection alternated--one week recycling pickup and the next week black bag non recycled waste pickup. But starting at the end of January, recycling is picked up every week and black bag only every three weeks (basically once a month). Normally, it takes me 3-4 weeks to fill up a black bag. But now I really want to concentrate on stretching myself to see how long I can go before I have to put out a black bag. Can I go six weeks (two pickup cycles?) Can I stretch to nine weeks (three pickup cycles?) 

Our recycling is even better than it used to be. Many more things are accepted locally to fill the blue recycling bags and now large supermarkets like Tesco have collections for things like crisp packets and certain plastic food bags that can't be recycled kerbside. 

I would love to be able to buy more naked fruit and veg, but it is not always available or affordable. Broccoli I can get plastic free, but kale I cannot. Kale comes in a crinkly plastic bag that can't be recycled so I try to use them as a bin liner in the bathroom before it goes into the black bag. 

Also when you try to throw away crinkly plastic bags they will not scrunch. Or rather they won't stay scrunched. This means that they take up a lot of space (very light air-filled space) but space none the less in your black bag filling it up quicker. The trick is take one minute to cut it into strips so it takes up less space. Another trick is to designate one crinkly bag as the "fill bag" and put all your strips into it before you put it in the black bag. 

And the last resolution for the day is:

3. ACTIVITIES AND EXPERIENCES

Let's be honest--the Amazing Spiderman was my EVERYTHING. We had lots of fun experiences over the years, but now I need to do them differently. Now I do them on my own (which is not as bad as i thought it might be. I was afraid I would look like Billy-No-Mates, but truthfully--nobody cares) and some I do with my FRAMILY. 

I got some birthday and Christmas money and so I have bought myself tickets to have a variety of experiences throughout the year. I will see three NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE at the cinema by myself (The Crucible, Othello and a play called Good starring David Tennant) and two comedians at the LYRIC THEATRE (Rich Hall and Mark Steel) with my Stand Up Comedian Friend (and Spiderman's former supervisor) Bettina. I also have tickets to see the Peatbog Faeries in concert. I have tickets to Swansea Comic Con with my Geek Friends the FT Gang and have already started going out with my Cinema Friend Pearl--we went out on Monday night to film club at the Lyric to see The Muppets Take Manhattan. 

That's all I have time for today as I need to finish making props so i can go and do a dress rehearsal for the storytelling. 

I hope you have lots of fun this year and don't feel like you have to do it all by yourself. 

2021 Vision

 Hello lovelies! Happy new year! 2020 was rollercoaster year, wasn't it? But it did allow me to see some things clearly:

1. I need routine. And it is hard to impose it on myself, but I must try harder especially as we are yet again in lockdown. 

2. I love my job. I mean I REALLY love my job. I miss it when I can't go to work. I am more productive and happier when I have been at work. I have a really good work-life balance and like to be having both halves of work and life. 

3. I am recharged by interacting with people. I knew this before, but I REALLY learned it over the big lockdown. The Amazing Spiderman is perfectly happy working from home as people drain him, but I was like a flat battery for months. I don't ever want to go out in big noisy groups in crowded spaces (not even before COVID) but I really thrive on some one on one conversations. I like meeting a friend for a hot chocolate in an independent café or going for a picnic in the park to save money. I also really enjoy interacting with customers. We have lots of regulars who pop in regularly (that is the definition of a regular, Spidergrrl!) that I look forward to seeing. Interacting with customers and being helpful is a huge part of my happiness. 

4. I have some control issues. Quite a lot of control issues, and this year has been out of control which has been really hard to cope with. This also ties in with routine because  with Spiderman working from home I could not keep to the routine I liked and found it very hard to take his suggestion to "please just do that some other time." 

5. I have trouble accepting help. I am often out helping people while my battery is on low (another issue I am continually working on) but find it harder to allow someone to help me. My dear old dad once said to me, "Why are you making things harder for yourself?" to which I replied "But it is so much easier to make things difficult!" by which I meant it is so much easier to do it myself that to ask for help. More on this in a bit. 

6. I am not good at sharing. I need my own computer. This was a serious issue during the big lockdown. I am a writer. Blogging takes up a lot of time and research and I am an author who needs to work on her own stories. This was a HUGE issue between myself and the Amazing Spiderman over the big lockdown. I was like Vesuvius waiting to erupt, always boiling and seething under the surface as we both needed to be on the computer at the same time but in the rock/paper/scissors of life--work trumps personal reasons. We have solved this by investing in a second laptop and it has CHANGED MY LIFE. I have written more in the last two months than in the whole rest of the year. 

7. I need more creative outlets. This too was a struggle during the big lockdown when I couldn't go to work.  I started to think about what made me happy and what I missed from my life in England when I worked in a school. There was lots of time for laying about ruminating on what I enjoy that I was not allowed to do while I waited (im)patiently for my turn on the computer. Once I determined what it was, I made damn sure to start doing it the moment I got back to work. More on this later. 

Having gained some extraordinary insight into myself in 2020, I wanted to reflect that in my Vision Board.

What is a Vision Board, I hear you cry? Well, it is part woowoo, part arts and crafts. I like to really think on new year's day what I want to do in the upcoming year and who I want to be (striving always to be a better person). It is not about new year's resolutions--which are easily broken--but just some personal growth goals and a reminder of what makes me happy. By making a tangible reminder of what brings me joy, I can make sure to do it. I then hang it in a prominent place in my craft room and look at it every morning to remind me of what it is important. 

Want to see it? Of course you do.

So what am I doing this year? In no particular order:

1. Being vegan--this is the core of my values. Does it cause death and suffering? Then it is to be avoided. Does it bring life and kindness? Then it is to be celebrated. Compassion is so much better than cruelty. 

2. What am I doing in the world to make it better? Making sure to look for opportunities to make a difference in the world. This has been more important in lockdown....how can help others (making sure that what I choose to do energises me rather than depletes me--setting boundaries.) 

3. I am the chief cook in our house, but this was not always so. When we were first married and I was a full time student and then a full time teacher with a terrible work-life balance, Spiderman did all our cooking. When I wanted to become vegan I learned how to cook (and cook well!) Spiderman is a great cook. he is just much slower than me. I swear the man gets a ruler out when he chops potatoes as they are all identically sized! Since I am often tired from work, he has offered many times to share the burden of cooking. I do not take him up on it nearly as often as I should and then feel resentful as I am tired or my back hurts and it is me doing it. We had a long talk about this and I am going to work harder to relinquish some control in the kitchen. So in 2021, we will be taking turns more. We also will be cooking together more. I can do food prep MUCH faster while we chat about our days and then I can bugger off and do some yoga or have a nap while he does the cooking. Also, I want to make sure to do more advance food prep to make cooking for whoever's turn it is, easier. 

4. Keeping to a loose routine especially in times of lockdown. I don't have to do EVERYTHING in a day, but it would be nice to tick a few things off my enjoyment list (see below) every day. Also writing down a few things in my 2021 diary that I would like to accomplish (or need to be done--I cannot tell you the amount of times I have realised at midnight that something needed to be done for the morning.)  Better organisation and loose routine (especially in lockdown) but also for when I am working to use my time more wisely. 

5. Doing things that bring me joy--making crafts and creating art, reading (and discussing--this year Spiderman will be a judge for the Carnegie and Greenaway awards and so we will get upwards of a hundred books to read and talk about...I made us our own little book club symbol!), making films with my new stop motion animation app. These are all things I am doing for me...but there are several things I do at home that bring me joy that involve work. Sewing fancy dress costumes to wear at the Bookshop (after the big lockdown I have gone to work dressed as Hercule Poirot, the witch from Narnia and a Christmas elf) as well as storytelling. I realised how much I missed storytelling--the research of finding a story that feels right in my mouth, adapting it, memorising it, making costumes or props for it, performing it. Right now it is not possible to have children in the shop for an actual audience but we have gotten round this by having my faithful camera crew Spiderman film me telling tales. Which leads me neatly on to my next intention.

6. DIY. I used to be such a luddite--I only got my first smartphone in 2017 and I always feel like I am behind on technology but this year I taught myself to build a website because some friends with an animal sanctuary needed help. I also taught myself to use video editing software so that we could put up films of my storytelling on the the Goldstone Books YouTube Channel. I used to think that I was not smart enough to do "computer things" but it turns out I was wrong. So this year, with my new laptop that I don't have to share, I am finally working on a project that has been on hold since 2016--turning my epistolary novel into a graphic novel. Yes, I will be teaching myself how to illustrate online by using my my new tech skills to tell my story. Then we will publish my second book! Hoorah! 

7. Coming out of the big lockdown (but still in cautious mode) I was reminded who was in my tribe and who I enjoyed spending time with and who I hadn't missed at all. There are several people I let fade away because they drained me and several people I made an active effort to spent (socially distanced) time with because they energised me. Even now, in our third lockdown, I am making time to have phone calls and texts with people I care about (or send make and send a card if they are struggling) and that connection is keeping my going. 

8. The lockdowns put such a strain on small businesses and several independent vegan businesses have had to close. I work for an independent bookshop and I am all too aware of the national chain right down the road who can sell at a bigger discount than we can. I tried last year to support more small businesses (especially ones that help us cut our waste) and this year I will try even harder. We just booked in an order with Cegin Mam Gu for a three course Greek meal that is vegan and GF and delivered to our door which I am very much  looking forward to since we can't go out for a meal. Which leads me to my next point.

9. Drink more tea. This ticks the box of supporting Tea Traders ( a great independent business in town run by two lovely blokes which sells loose tea) as well as keeping me hydrated. Fruit tea is good hot or cold and I am guaranteed to have less pain and be less cranky if I am drinking some delicious tea.  

10. The self care checklist. Even just 15 minutes a day makes all the difference in my physical and emotional wellbeing. Yoga and strength training for my body (I have let my ab work go this year and I feel it in my lower back), deep breathing and mindfulness (I tend towards hyperventilating and overthinking), more orgasms (they are truly the best pain relief and mood booster I know) and a 15 minute tidy every day instead of letting things pile up until it takes hours to put everything back where it belongs will save my sanity. 

11. Patience. About everything.  Enough said.  

What did you learn about yourself in 2020? What do you hope to do with your life in 2021? 

Recycling with Beyoncé (all the single plastics)

Hello lovelies. I have written over the years about our desire to cut back on our plastic waste. I know we tend to agonise more than the average person on stuff like this, but we still have so far to go.

One of the many reasons we wanted to emigrate to the UK was to be able to less wasteful....to recycle more...to be car free....to cut down on our carbon footprint. And in many ways we have been very successful. When we lived in England we had a glorious farmer's market and got most of our fruit and veg plastic free at really cheap prices. We also used a lot more reusables when we lived in England. Some of those things we let slide when we moved to Wales because they were too expensive. Even now that I have a good job and we have more disposable income, we still need to be cautious with our spending. It means we cannot be as ethical as we would like, but we do our best.

You read about tips and tricks to become ZERO WASTE and see people who fit all their waste for the year in a jar. They talk about all the money they save buying without packaging, but that really isn't the case. We are starting a journey to reduce our waste as much as we can and recycle LESS. I know that sounds mad as I am always banging on about recycling, but really we all need to create less waste. Especially since I recently read an article about how plastics that our councils told us had been recycled had actually been shipped to Malaysia and they were shipping it back.

This prompted me to really crack down and work harder to eliminate single use items. Single use plastics. Single use anything that cannot be recycled.

But cost has to be factored in, unfortunately. I am so thrilled to have a Zero Waste Shop right next door to my job. I shop there as much as humanly possible, but there are a lot of things I cannot afford to buy from her. Things like oats, nuts, gluten free pasta and rice are 3 to 4 times more expensive naked. I can't justify that. I want to, but I can't. But things like spices, vegetables, lentils, polenta and fruit are just a little more expensive than normal and so i buy what I can.

I bought a book called No. More. Plastic. by Martin Dorey. There are lots of good and helpful 2 minute solutions in there. Suggestions like if there is a choice between plastic and glass, choose glass. I have been doing that at only slightly more cost. But somethings like toasted sesame oil don't come in glass. Or sunflower oil.

It also says if a package says not currently recycled don't buy it again. That just won't work. We would never get kale again as I cannot find it anywhere fresh. Or rice. Or pasta. Or nuts at an affordable price. Which breaks my heart, but there you are.

So what are we actually doing to reduce our waste?

1. We always have water bottles with us and utensils in my cutlery wrap so we never have to get disposable stuff when we are out. 

2. It is a struggle to find affordable consumables, but we are vowing not to buy (as much as humanly possible) things that are single use plastics. If I can make it to avoid plastic I will.

3. To replace as many nonconsumables with reusable options. I spent around £30 and invested in some  fabulous silicone mats to eliminate things like parchment paper and cling film as well as some eco kitchen scrubby doodahs (technical term). I am loving all the silicone mats as I used to use an insane amount of parchment paper.  I will be doing a post next week about these and what has worked well and what had worked less well.

4. We currently get our rubbish picked up every other week. We normally put out one black bin bag every four weeks, but we are working toward moving to throwing away a bag of rubbish every six weeks then every eight weeks. 

5. Less recycling. Glass is acceptable as we can take it to the bottle bank. But single use plastics are out and we are decreasing our dependence of tetra packs. I noticed that quite a lot of the bulk of our recycling is drink cartons. We had been buying almond milk, but after a talk with a friend about how thirsty a crop that almonds are I decided to forgo almond milk in a carton and start making my own cashew milk. I bought 2 Kilner style bottles at Poundland and starting this week I will be making my own milk. I did have to get cashews in a plastic bag but I got a kilo for £9.99 so it really means only one bag, not lots of little single bags. Definitely more on this later...I just need to perfect my formula. I am even going to try my hand at supplementing it. Watch this space.

6. Any non recyclable plastics we do have to buy like kale and nuts that come in a big bag get a second use as a bin bag for the bathroom before throwing out. I've also found that crinkly plastics expand and don't stay scrunched up like they should. This means they expand in your bin bag and take up more space. If you use a bag like a rice or pasta bag and a outer bag and fill it with lots of folded scrunchy plastics, they don't expand as much and you can get more in your black bag and it takes longer to fill up, if that makes sense.

I am sure there are more things we are doing, but i really am too tired to think of any more. What are your top tips for reducing your waste?

Progress not Perfection on my Zero waste Journey--buying naked produce

Hello my eco-conscious friends. I am happy to report I had another successful day out with my Zero Waste Kit yesterday. My friend Sarah and I went to Skanda Vale and I am happy to say it gets easier and easier to bring my own stuff everywhere I go.

Today I want to talk about things I have doing to reduce my waste. Some have been really successful and others just so-so, but that is how you learn what works--by trial and error.

The first thing we looked at was trying to buy more fruit and veg "naked." Because we are on a tight-as-a-drum budget, money has to be a consideration. Our usual plan of action had been to buy everything from Lidl in a plastic bag because the prices are so good. Lidl sells little to no loose produce, so if we were going to do this, we had to first do a cost analysis.

Now I love this sort of thing. I am happiest when making little charts and diagrams and comparisons. The one thing I struggle with is the math aspect of it. But most places tell you the price per kilogram so I don't have to work it out myself, but occasionally I had to do a little calculating on paper. And then double check by using a calculator and then get Spiderman to check my calculations. Sigh...

We are lucky in that we have several supermarkets that we can get to. Carmarthen has a Lidl and a Tesco and a Marks and Spencer Food Hall all within walking distance of our house. Spiderman works in Lampeter and there is a Sainsburys there.

What I did was write down everything we normally buy in plastic and the price we paid for it, so I would know how much more it would cost to buy it without plastic. The agreement was if it was a small difference between loose and plastic (something like 15p) we would do it, but if it was like 50p or more to get it plastic free, we would continue to buy it bagged.

Would we like not count the cost and just be 100% zero waste? Sure, but it isn't going to happen at this time.

This is what I found:
carrots
45p per kg bagged at Lidl, 60p per kg loose at Tesco and Sainsbury--15p more---- YES

mushrooms
£2.83 per kg in plastic at Lidl, £2.75 per kg loose at Tesco, £2.70 per kg loose at Sainsbury--8p to 13p less---YES (this surprised me--most things are more to buy loose)

onions
57p per kg in a plastic net at Lidl, 75p per kg loose at Tesco and Sainsbury--18p more--YES

new potatoes
price varies at Lidl but on average 75p per kg, no loose new potatoes at Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S both sell loose new potatoes for £2.50 per kg--£1.75 more--NO

oranges
in a plastic net at Lidl 97p for 5 medium oranges, both Lidl and Tesco sell loose oranges at 30p each so it is 53p more to buy them loose. --Maybe. We have been buying them loose because I have found some savings elsewhere (9p savings on buying 500ml sunflower oil at Poundland not Lidl etc)  I think we will buy them loose, unless there is a sale on, then buy them in a net.

broccoli 
£1.28 per kg in plastic wrap at Lidl, £1.57 per kg loose at Tesco, £1.35 per kg at both M&S and Sainsbury. 7p more--YES.  A thousand times yes. I have bought loose broccoli twice at M&S, both times selecting the biggest head i could (sadly, they have no scale, so i never knew how much it was going to be) but each time paying around 57p and that head of broccoli fed us for three meals which is incredible value for money.

apples(Braeburn or Gala) 
Hard to say about apples at Lidl, there are different kinds in bags all at different prices per kg, they did have some loose ones but they were GINORMOUS and I didn't want to get two apples the size of a baby's head for one kilo, so I looked elsewhere. £2.20 per kg at Tesco, but again...a bit on the big side. That's what makes bags convenient as you get 5-6 smaller ones. £2 per kg at M&S and Sainsbury. I haven't seen the ones at Sainsbury in person, but the M&S ones are a decent size. Not huge, but not titchy either. I got 5 apples at M&S at roughly 37p each. YES

peppers
pretty much everywhere you shop, loose peppers are 55p each. I can get a bag of three at Lidl for 92p (sometimes less) That's a 73p difference.--NO

Tinned tomatoes
34p each at Lidl, 35p each  at Tesco. these are both loose without that shrink plastic connector thing. Buying the shrink plastic set of 4 at Tesco, they are only 1 p more. YES

Baked beans (reduced sugar and salt)
we prefer the reduced sugar and salt cowboy beans from Tesco. This really chaps Spiderman's ass (as they say in the American South.) To buy them loose they are 32p each, to buy them with that shrink plastic connector thing they are 4 for £1, making them 25p each. Why should it cost LESS for extra packaging???? We always buy a 4 pack because sometimes i am too tired to cook and you need something easy and healthy. It's 28p more to buy them loose--YES, but grudgingly. 
Side note: I have found that Sainsbury will collect the plastic shrink wrap on multi packs of cans in their carrier bag collection box.

Recycle Now says they also collect: YES Plastic carrier bags	NO Any non-Polyethylene film (e.g. PP, PVC, others)
Plastic bread bags (shake out)	Cling film
Plastic cereal bags i.e. Porridge Oats (not inners from boxed cereals)	Food and drink pouches
Plastic wrappers and ring joiners from multipacks of cans and plastic bottles	Crisp packets
Plastic wrappers from toilet roll and kitchen towel packs	Film lids from ready meals and food trays
Plastic freezer bags
Plastic magazine and newspaper wrap (type used for home delivery only)
Thin bags used for fruit and veg at supermarkets
Bubble wrap
Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) - resin ID code 4

 The list above will help us recycle some of the things we have previously thrown away because our local counsel doesn't accept them (like plastic wrappers from toilet roll and magazine wrap)

So what have I been using to bag my naked produce? After much consideration, I have chosen to buy rather than make something. I normally am all about the DIY, but the bags needed to be lightweight and see-through and I didn't have anything in my fabric stash that fit the bill.

I ended up buying some of those zippered lingerie bags from Poundland. They are perfect. Easy to fill, machine washable, 10g in weight (so they don't add much to your cost since the supermarket won't subtract the weight of the bag)

Every shop i went to, someone stopped me and marvelled on what a good idea it was and where did I buy them, so hopefully planting seeds of being a good eco-steward.

Here they are in action:

apples and broccoli from M&S

mushrooms and onions from Tesco

The only downside to the bags is they came in a plastic packaging, but the packing says "Please recycle this packaging" as opposed to the dreaded "This package is currently not recyclable" so i am going to try my luck taking it to the Sainsbury bag collection.

So are we mostly plastic free? Well, there are some things like cucumber and lettuce for the snails, salad, kale and spinach for us that are always in plastic and never naked. I can see why kale, spinach and salad need to be bagged, but why-oh-why does a cucumber need a shrink wrap???

We have started using empty salad, kale and spinach bags as a bag in the bathroom rubbish bin. We figured give it a second job before it goes in the black bag.

In my next post, i'll go over some of the other ways we have made changes to reduce what we throw away.

Progress Not Perfection on my Zero Waste Journey--the First of the Five R's (Refuse)

Greetings and salutations my eco-conscious friends. This is my third post inspired by my recent incredibly waste producing trip to the US where I went to visit my lovely daughter. I  had several panic attacks while there over the amount of rubbish I was single-handedly producing and was gobsmacked by the sheer quantity of single use plastics that pervaded everyday life. If you missed that one and want to read about the 56 single use plastic water bottles I used in two weeks you can CLICK HERE.

When I was growing up, there were only Three R's--Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  Times have changed. Now there are Five. Because we live in such a throwaway society with all these single use plastics we have to start with the most important R.

Refuse.  Just say no. Which is a lot harder than it seems as my recent trip to the US proved. I thought the UK was bad, but it is a piece of cake compared to the amount of refusing I had to do in the US.

In the UK, they charge you 5p for a plastic bag, so there was an 85% drop in people getting plastic bags. People started to bring their own cloth ones (I upcycled and sewed some from old curtains)  or bought Bags for Life--heavy duty reusable ones that are made from 94% recyclable plastic. Places like Tesco will replace your worn out Bag for Life for free if it is one of theirs.

In the US...a different story. Every. Single. Shop. popped my items in a plastic bag before i could refuse. Even my shouts of "No bag, please!" were ignored. It is just habit for the cashiers. You buy, they bag. My attempts to give back plastic bags were frowned up. The cashier would sigh and screw up their faces because I had messed up the system. The bags are on a special doo-dah (technical term) that held each bag open and made it easy to pop items in. My giving back a bag meant that they would have to fight to bag the next person's items.

And the straws!  For Frith's sake, Every. Single. Place popped a straw into my drink before I could say "No straw!" Boom! It was in there. The one place that brought me a straw in a paper wrapper was Olive Garden. When everyone was opening their straws and putting them in their glass of water I said I wanted to reduce my use of single use plastics, someone in my family actually said to me:

I *always* use a straw. you never know about the cleanliness of the glass. I don't want to put my mouth directly on it. 

She said as she ate with a fork off of a plate. If you are that afraid of grot at the Olive Garden then you shouldn't eat there.

In the UK, we do a pretty good job of refusing...partially because people don't give you stuff like bags or straws. If any of my US peeps want to try this (and I would urge you to do so)....you have your work cut out for you.

In the UK, I nearly always have a water bottle...I think I have bought a single use plastic bottle a dozen times in 14 years. I do have a cutlery bag to carry cutlery and cloth napkins, but I don't always have it with me. I originally made it to go on hikes and picnics. Now I have it with me always. The sorts of places where I eat out give you real silverware not plastic...but there are *always* paper napkins, so now I am prepared to refuse those as well.

Here's my new improved DIY cutlery roll made from stuff I already had. Eagle-eyed friends will recognise this fabric as I have clothes made from it. It's basically two pieces of 10 inch by 14 inch fabric, sewn together on three sides (right sides together), turned right side out and top stitched to close the gap on the open side and folded up 4 inches to make a pocket. I sewed pocket divider lines and attached a button and elastic loop closure. I did the whole thing in a little over an hour.

After seeing all the smug Vloggers with their cute (and expensive) bamboo travel utensils, I was like--I can do better. It would have been even cheaper to just use some cutlery I already owned, but we only have place settings for four and I didn't want to always be shouting, "I know we've got more bloody spoons than this!" at Spiderman. So, I went to a charity shop and bought 2 spoons and 2 forks for 10p each. 40p. Splashing out the big money. They're not matchy-matchy, but oh well.

If you can't sew, why not just reuse something like a pencil case. or if your old pencil case is grotty, buy a new one for like £1.

If I was the sort of person who liked a straw in my drink (or lived in the US) I'd get one of these stainless steel reusable straws:

It even comes with a wee brush for cleaning it. I'm told the trick is to show it to your server when you order a drink to imprint on their mind not to give you one.

I rarely get stuff to go. If we are going to pay to eat out, we are damn well going to sit in and enjoy ourselves. But if you are the sort of person who always gets a Starbucks latte (other brands are available, and might even pay taxes) or whatever, invest in a reusable travel cup because that paper one that you just throw away is lined with plastic and can't be recycled. Plus lots of places will give you a discount for bringing your own. If you want to be all cool and hipster, bring a jar. But be aware that many jars aren't heat proof and might explode, so get a kilner jar which can withstand the heat and has less of a chance of leaking. Personally, glass is HEAVY and a faff to carry about because of the weight and the fact that it is BREAKABLE. (says the clumsy woman with back problems)

I was given one by my lovely daughter, so now, if I want to I can get my hot chocolate with soya milk to go, I can do it guilt free.

A reusable container is one I never thought about carrying. As i said, when we can afford to eat out we tend to eat in the establishment and don't get stuff like takeaways. But what about leftovers? You can ask places to put your leftover food in your own container. Or if you buy a slice of cake from a vegan stall, it can go in your box.

Now, you could spend money on a stainless steel container like the one featured above from A Slice of Green which costs £18 plus postage, or you could dig around in your cupboards and find something you ALREADY HAVE. Which conveniently is the third R in the Five R's--REUSE. Some people just carry a huge ass reused glass jar with them for this purpose.

I am using a BPA  and Phthalate free plastic, leak proof box i got on sale from Tesco for £1.75. It is also much LIGHTER and not BREAKABLE because lugging around a giant jar would be murder on my back.

So here is my DIY Zero Waste Kit. It is made with cheapness in mind--I made the cutlery bag from materials i already had and I spent 40p on cutlery to go in it. I used my regular BPA free water bottle from Wilkos plus my new coffee travel mug that was a gift and a container I got on sale and stuck it in a free bag I got 5 years ago at a science thing.

I can carry it as is or pop it in my backpack. I plan on trying it out Saturday at the Vegan Fayre in town. I will report back on my experiences.

Tying myself in knots: Why Zero Waste is a myth (but why we still have to try)

Greetings and salutations, my eco-conscious friends.  Do you ever feel overwhelmed by it all?

Trying to be a good person in a world that largely doesn't give a shit is hard.

When you want to buy things there are so many things to consider:

Is it vegan? Does it contain animal ingredients?

Is it cruelty free? Was it tested on animals? 

Does it contain harsh chemicals that disrupt hormones or are used in antifreeze?

What sort of packaging does it come in? Is it reusable? Or recyclable? 

How much does it cost? 

This is why I make so many things like tooth powder, moisturiser, make up and deodorant because I can't find something that meets all the above criteria. 

If it's food you also have to think about things like:

Food miles

Packaging (again)

Is it vegan? (again...animal products can sneak into products in ways you don't expect)

How was it grown? Is it organic?

How much does it cost?  

The problem is we are on an immensely tight budget. This is the life we have chosen and are happy to do so. We work less and so have lots of time to do the things we love, spend time together, be in nature, rest, read, relax, create and enjoy life. But it comes at the price of having to watch our pennies. 

So for us cost is *always* a factor. When you add in all the other things it can feel really overwhelming. Do you buy the organic apples if they come from New Zealand? What if  the only organic apples come in a non-recyclable plastic bag? 

If you can even afford organic. But you can't NOT afford to! I hear people cry. Well, our food budget is £30 a week. We don't drive. We don't have a farmer's market nearby. 

I get so sick of watching smug videos of Zero Waste Gits--I mean Vloggers, showing off their tiny jar of the last two years worth of garbage and going on and on and on about the great farmer's market and buying all organic produce and then popping over the Bulk Bin shop and bringing their own containers and then spending a ruddy fortune on a toothbrush made from bamboo. Since they didn't know which kind of bamboo toothbrush they wanted, they ordered 5 different expensive kinds before settling on the perfect one. They just spent £30 on toothbrushes. That could feed us for a week.

We don't live in a market town anymore like we did in England. Without a car, the supermarket is our only choice for food. The nearest Bulk bin shop is in Pontardawe. That's 30 miles. 

I found a Zero Waste Starter Kit for sale online. You got trendy, matchy-matchy things like a glass water bottle, stainless steel reusable container, bamboo cutlery, cloth napkin, reusable ceramic coffee cup in an organic cotton bag for £55. 

FIFTY FIVE POUNDS, PEOPLE. 

It just makes you feel overwhelmed like a deer in the headlights. It makes you think:

This is impossible.

I can't afford this.

I'll never be able to get all my rubbish in a small jar.

I might as well give up.

Then I gave myself a good talking to and said:

You are the Amazing Spidergrrl. you can do this.

You are the Queen of DIY.

You love to research and find a bargain. See what you can reduce (like plastic packaging) and still stay under budget. 

You can make stuff. You can sew.

Be more gentle with yourself. Progress not perfection. 

You already do things like always have a water bottle and carry reusable bags. You probably already do more than you realise. 

Just take some baby steps and keep adding in good things to your journey. 

So, I started to alter my google searches. I searched for things like Zero Waste Cheap and Zero Waste Budget and I found a Vlogger called Leafeco. 

This woman speaks my language. She has a great video about setting up your own Zero Waste Kit with stuff you probably already had. Suddenly, all my worries melted away. I can do this. I may not get to a little jar, but I can make better choices and not go into debt. 

Watch her video here and get inspired. 

So, I have made myself a DIY Zero Waste Kit out of stuff I already had and sewed myself something new to wrap my cutlery in as I wanted to improve on my previous attempt at a portable cutlery wrap.

You see? I already had a portable cutlery wrap! I am doing better than I thought.  I'm thinking of making some to sell in my Etsy shop. 

I'll blog about my Zero Waste Kit next time. . 

Re-evaluating My Relationship With Plastic, Renewing My Commitment to the Earth

Today is Easter. A time where we renew our faith in both the natural world (spring is here and we watch Mother Earth renew herself) and for all my Christian friends, a time of renewal of faith in the church (with the resurrection of Jesus.)

It is a time for renewal and re-evaluation.

Ever since my trip to the US, I have been reevaluating my relationship with waste. I spent two weeks in Louisiana and my home town STILL doesn’t recycle.

 In 2018.

Does. Not. Recycle.

Other towns do. But not Alexandria. I was incredibly wasteful while I was there, going through single use plastics like water. In fact, many of them contained water. In the UK, I would rarely if ever buy a plastic bottle full of water, but where my daughter lives the city water is not great and the pipes in her house were old and made of lead, so they drank bottled water.

 

I drank four 500ml bottles of water every day for two weeks.

That’s 56 plastics bottles just from me. That does not include other members of her household.

It made me want to cry. I suffered noticeable panic attacks having to throw things away or whenever a cashier tried to give me a single use plastic bag.

I was so relieved to get back to the UK. I could not live like that.

But the whole time I was in the US, I kept thinking “at least you can recycle all this when you get back.”

But coming back, I started to reflect on how much we do for the environment and how much more we could do. I looked at old blog posts about our plastic usage which you can read {HERE} and realised that our plastic usage has increased since we moved to Wales.

Hitchin was a market town and had a huge fabulous food market twice a week. We got 90% of our fruit and veg naked there with no plastic packaging. The food was also really cheap—like a heaping bowl of 10 apples for £1 or 1 kilo of mushrooms in a paper bag for £2. These days, we have nothing like this near us. There is a tiny overpriced veg stall on the Wednesday outdoor market, but all their food is pre-bagged in plastic. I spoke to the man last week saying, “If I wanted to buy these apples, would you pick me out a kilo and put them in my cloth bag?” And he replied, “Here they are, love. Already bagged and ready” as he tried to hand me a plastic bag with apples.

 

These days, as we live on considerably less income than we did when we lived in England, money must be a consideration. The cheapest produce comes from Lidl and is almost always pre-bagged. We have looked at naked produce at Tesco, but it costs more. Considerably more. And prices have been creeping up since we began our ill-advised journey to BREXIT and so our £30 a week for food doesn’t go as far as it should. That means plastic bagged produce for us, sadly. Which means I must start looking for other ways to cut back on rubbish to compensate for this.

I am also more and more convinced that we need to recycle LESS. I know, I am horrified that Alexandria doesn’t recycle, but we can’t just keep buying all these single use plastics and pop them in to our blue bags feeling all virtuous and never wondering what happens to them. Or (God forbid)find out that they are not even actually being recycled at all. I really think we all need to eliminate (as much as possible) our use of single use plastics and THEN recycle what is left.

So, I have been looking at other ways to reduce our waste in other areas. Ways to always have reusables on hand and completely sever ties with single use plastics.

For the next few weeks expect some blog posts about ways that we are doing this.

I hope you’ll join me.