Grocery shopping: Baby steps to becoming plastic-free

Gulf News

Read the full article on gulfnews.com - Pledge against plastic: How green are supermarket bags? http://bit.ly/2WjUOcs  See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos  Enjoy some tips on how to adopt a plastic-free lifestyle, and eliminate needless waste from your life.

Transcript

00:00Today I'm going to show you small steps to actually reduce your plastic consumption and

00:12become plastic free.

00:13The first thing I'm going to buy today is actually my fruits and vegetables.

00:17Usually I choose materials that I can wash.

00:20When they wait, the fruits and the vegetables, I will get the sticker and put it on my shopping

00:25list so at the end I can go to the cashier and they can scan each one of them.

00:29Here we have the typical example of the situation where we get the fruit unpackaged and the

00:36fruit packaged.

00:38So between the two, this is really some plastic that's not needed.

00:42Bananas are strong enough, thick skin, just need to apply the sticker on it and bring

00:48it to you to the counter.

00:49When I do buy my bread, I take with me wax paper bags.

00:54If I'm going to buy a bigger piece of bread, I bring with me some bigger paper bags or

01:04any cotton bag will do.

01:06Something as simple as butter, the best thing to purchase is the one that is just wrapped

01:13in paper.

01:17So this is the typical styrofoam board where we have our fruits, our vegetables, the meat,

01:23the cold cuts.

01:24The only problem with this board is that it's not recyclable.

01:26This is a material that cannot be recycled and somehow every time we go home we are shopping,

01:31we might have at least 10 or 20 in our cart and this is a big problem and causes a lot

01:37of waste that goes to landfill.

01:39Something we eat a lot at home is yogurt and this has been quite difficult at the beginning

01:44to try to reduce the amount of plastic.

01:46There are two ways so far.

01:48One is to buy the bigger pot.

01:51Instead of buying maybe five of these and five containers, another possibility is to

01:57actually go for a glass pot.

02:00In the UAE we have over a thousand different brands of drinking water.

02:05I would suggest when it comes to water to go for a mineral water.

02:09If it says pure drinking water, then it is just tap water and you can drink your own

02:15filtered tap water at home and reduce tremendously packaging.

02:19Many times we need to actually buy single use items and definitely some of them are

02:25plates, glasses, cutlery.

02:28You have here a seal, a green track and along the shelves you will find always the greener

02:34option so as you can see here we have the plastic ones but if you come a bit below,

02:41you will find again the seal that shows you the paper option.

02:44The same thing is valid for the cutlery.

02:49So the nice thing about these is that they are made out of bamboo and wood.

02:54We do need a lot of Tupperwares in our house.

02:58The best option in this case would be to choose a glass Tupperware.

03:01You can put them in the oven, you can put them in a microwave.

03:03They are not going to leak any chemicals into your food.

03:07We tend to go for liquid soaps but liquid soaps are a fashion because definitely the

03:13best option would be to go with the old powder.

03:16It comes into a carton box.

03:18Carton is one thing that in the UAE is widely recycled.

03:22The amount of nappies that we use during the first years of life of our children is incredible.

03:28We don't realize it and the problem with nappies is that they are really not degradable.

03:33One brand widely available in the UAE in the different supermarkets is Natty and Natty

03:39is made of breathable materials, non-plastic.

03:43It's made out of corn starch.

03:45They degrade very quickly.

03:46Another item that I was very happy to discover recently in different supermarkets is a new

03:52brand that offers feminine pads and sanitary pads all made out of organic cotton and there

03:59is no plastic packaging inside.

04:05In case you forget your bags because it happens also to me, I always carry in my own purse

04:12different small bags.

04:13So what I recommend is to start small and take it step by step.

04:19It shouldn't be overwhelming.

04:21The first thing to do is to take with you a reusable bag.

04:24You put them in your cars, put a few in your bag and that will be the first step in order

04:28for you to reduce your plastic consumption.

04:31Later you can start looking for specific items that come in a non-plastic packaging and later

04:37on you will actually bring your own reusable items.

04:41The first steps are definitely to try to not drink from plastic bottled water, not use

04:46straws.

04:47As I said, no plastic bags.

04:49Try to buy as many glass jars so you can reuse them and this is how slowly you will become

04:55plastic free.

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