Today’s focus is on making a change in your life to benefit the planet. The Wildlife Trust has a number of really helpful ideas that you can look into on their website here. The issue I am having with today though is that I am quite limited. For starters, I already try to do a lot: I try to always use reusable or canvas tote bags for my shopping and I don’t eat meat, so those are two big things that a person can do. I am also quite limited in that I live in an apartment and do not have access to a garden nor do I have a balcony or any sort of private outside space, meaning I do not have a garden or secluded area to start my own garden or to grow pollinator friendly plants. As soon as I can afford a property with an outside space, this will be first on my list! I feel I am quite good with my food waste, in that I meal plan with my husband every week so we know exactly what we are eating each day for every meal and so our food waste is really low. Of course, there is always room for improvement so I will of course try and get this even more refined moving forward.
I would love to try the zero waste life style but in all honesty, when I have tried it, it has been very difficult to do. I don’t live close to any refill shops, so even if I do buy certain foods in bulk (such as porridge or pasta), that still comes with it a certain amount of packaging waste. I do try to buy vegan products that come in recyclable packaging, such as cardboard, but this again can be difficult if my only food options available come in plastic. I find this is mostly common with fruit and veg always coming in plastic containers. Again I don’t live somewhere with a decent farmer’s market, and buying the food loose at the supermarket tends to cost more – which is obviously very frustrating! If anyone has any tips I would very much like to hear them, as it is something I very much would like to work on more.
One area that I hadn’t ever thought about though was microplastics, or more importantly, the plastics that were in my beauty products. Microplastics were banned in the UK in 2018, however it did not apply to all products, meaning that there still may be microplastics in lipstick, sunscreen and cleaning products. I think this will be my new commitment moving forward, as this is something completely new to me that I had never even heard of before. Again, if anyone has any cleaning products or any beauty products that they would recommend as being plastic free then please do let me know!
Taylor Talks Vegan 