The next crazy scheme

A few weeks ago, I heard a girl on the radio talking about her “zero waste” lifestyle. (Her website is http://www.therogueginger.com if you’re interested) Well, that got me to thinking and reading and getting onto what my family refer to as on of my crazy schemes. As I keep telling Mr Gorgeous, that’s part of my charm!

So, these amazing people have almost no rubbish. Literally. They keep their year’s rubbish in a jar. Not possible for me in a small town, (especially if I want to stay married!) but it has really got me thinking about what I CAN do here in West Gippsland.

I have discovered so much in the past week. Firstly,I have discovered just how much rubbish we produce. Once I started looking at it, I saw it every where. I buy so much in packages. So that’s where I started. We often say “Reduce, reuse, recycle”, but I read a few blogs that talk about “Refuse” as the first step, even before reduce. That got me thinking about where I could source my food without packaging. So I had a wander around town, and poked my head  in at a few likely shops. Here’s what I discovered.

I can buy bulk nuts, seeds and some other staples at the local health food shop and they are happy to put it in my own reused containers. I get through a lot of almonds and rolled oats for my breakfast, so I got those packaging  free. Also free was the lovely chat with the owner of the store.

Every deli that I asked is happy to slice cold meat and cut cheese and put anything else into my containers. The cheese had already been cut, and was wrapped in plastic wrap, so I left a container at the shop for them to cut me some Parmesan cheese when a new wrap free wheel comes in today. I’ll pick it up this afternoon. Another great chat, and a couple of leads to other blogs and sources at this shop!

My local butcher happily put my meat into my container. They get in bulk chickens twice (or was it three times?) a week, and are happy to put one aside for me if I let them know in advance. Of course we had a good chat, what butcher doesn’t. I think all butchers are born with the ‘jolly’ gene.

Between the local supermarket and the green grocer I’ve been able to buy all my fruit and veg bag and plastic bag free, but not small sticker free.

I’ve been carrying my water bottle with me so I’m not tempted to buy drinks along the way. Not such an issue since we gave up Coke (but that’s another story)

Long term, we’re going to get our own honey soon. The bee man visited yeaterday, and tells me that the hive is humming along, if you’ll excuse the pun!

Next step -tackling the junk mail. I should get onto this fast, as with Christmas approaching, we’re probably about to be inundated.