What goes into your rubbish bin?

Over the weekend I felt as though all I threw into our regular kitchen rubbish bin was plastic. All of it was generally, quite flimsy, thin plastic wrapping. There was obviously some recyclables in my garbage spree, but I have a separate bin for these and didn't seem particularly overwhelming or different to usual. I just couldn't get over the massive amount of this thin plastic that was in my house and taken straight from a product and into the bin.

I think from memory, most of this plastic that I threw out originated as food covering. I did some cooking on the weekend and so much of it came from the consumption of the products I was using in the cooking and also the replacement of some of the bulk food items that I tend to purchase.

So apart from my cooking spree, I had to rack my brains as to why this seemingly significant increase in plastic. Then it occurred to me, we have recently changed some of our family arrangements and with this my partner is now doing the grocery shopping. As he knows no better (well I don't think he does), its seems that when he purchases fruit and vegetable he puts it in the plastic bags available throughout the green-grocer section of your local supermarket. I hardly ever use these bags, probably only when buying grapes. As such, this certainly contributed a number of these additional plastic items that went into the bin. Also, as they seem to hold moisture and are quite small they are difficult to re-use around the house.

Instruction to my other half about the fact that we don't need these plastic green-grocer bags and that placing fruit and vegetables straight into the trolley and onto the counter is perfectly acceptable! I don't know whether he will adopt my suggestion, but if he doesn't I will have to come up with a way of re-using these bags. Otherwise I will feel too guilt about the amount of this plastic in the landfill or even worse blowing into the marine environment and potentially being ingested by some of a charismatic sea creatures, such as turtles or eventually find its way into the Great Garbage Patch in the 'middle' of the Pacific Ocean.

Plastic is everywhere, but where you can reduce your household intake of these or re-utilise around the house, it is important to do so. Pin It