What are the barriers to a Plastic-Free Food shop? Originally written for the Surfers Against Sewage Blog found here, I talk about the cost differences I have found between packaged and loose groceries in our supermarkets, and just how hard it is to complete a Plastic Free Food Shop. I'm reposting it here as the issue still stands - why are supermarkets charging more for loose food compared to options wrapped in plastic? The silent barrier to cutting down plasticIt seems the world is beginning to wake up to the impact of plastic. Viral videos of animals tangled in debris and recent heartbreaking footage from Blue Planet II have awakened a desire in the general public to do something about the deteriorating state of our oceans. And whilst it is great that people are becoming aware of the problems related to plastic pollution, the reality is that many people will struggle to cut it out of their lives. It’s not for a lack of empathy or education, or even will… Many of the most aware people will still struggle to live without it, and I ashamedly include myself in this. For all intents and purposes, I should be living a plastic-free existence – I’m a biologist. I’ve studied conservation. I’m well informed on the problems, reading up on plastic pollution and the latest scientific papers almost on a daily basis. Yet I still find myself buying products wrapped in single use plastic… I’ve got the basics of cutting down to a T – I carry a KeepCup, use shampoo bars instead of bottles, ask for strawless drinks if I’m out and bring a homemade lunch to the office most days. I use paper stemmed cotton buds and a cotton shopper, and I always use a refillable water bottle – but I can’t say I’ve gotten rid of this pervasive material altogether. I’ve successfully done Plastic-Free months the past two years, and it upsets me and makes me feel incredibly guilty that I can’t seem to sustain it for much longer. The reasons why are even more frustrating: both times, I went way over budget and spent a lot more time searching to find alternatives. It is incredibly disheartening that my personal barriers to living plastic-free seem to be time and money. The challenges of a Plastic-Free Food ShopI’m working hard to pay off student loans, cover my rent and living costs, and I’m trying to keep expenses down. This means I need to keep a close eye on what I spend at the supermarket and choose the cheapest possible options whilst still trying to maintain a healthy diet. I don’t have a car, which instantly limits the shops available to me, and living in a city means that my food shop nearly always comes from a supermarket where, you guessed it, everything is wrapped in plastic.
And here is where the problem lies. My situation is by no means unique, and more often than not, the plastic wrapped options at supermarkets are cheaper than loose options. Let’s look at three staples of my weekly shop… Loose satsumas at Sainsbury’s would cost me £2.90/kg whilst a plastic-wrapped pack would set me back £1.67/kg (Prices correct at time of writing and discrepancies like these are common at most supermarkets, not just the one mentioned). I could buy a paper wrapped loaf of bread from a bakery for £3 or spend £1 on the equivalent, wrapped in plastic. And a single loose bell pepper could cost me 50p, or I could pay £1 for a plastic wrapped pack of three. Those differences might not seem like much, but if you consider everything you would buy in the average weekly shop, it starts adding up quickly. For me at least, it soon becomes unaffordable and unsustainable. What’s worse is that a lot of the packaging, especially for fresh fruit and veg, is non-recyclable. Plus there are other things to consider, such as the monumental amount of food waste in the UK. Could I justify buying discounted fruit or veg wrapped in plastic if it means that it is saved from going to landfill whilst still perfectly edible? With the majority of the UK population living in cities and undoubtedly doing their food shop at a supermarket, it seems apparent to me that the solution to many of our plastic woes may lie with them. Even with the best of intentions, many people may find themselves bound by tight financial pressures and plastic wrapped options simply make sense from this perspective, taking immediate priority. If we are to truly change our ways as a society, we need to have viable, cheaper alternatives available, and in my opinion, this has to start with the main suppliers. It seems absolutely bonkers to me that you can save money by buying items with an extra material included in the price – surely they should cost more than loose items? On top of this, in a league of their own is the #PointlessPlastics found in many of the big chains – one quick search on twitter brings up plastic-wrapped orange segments or individually packaged muffins… the plastic is completely redundant and these need to be the first to go. Whilst plastic free grocery shops do exist, they are still few and far between and from personal experience, come at a bit of a premium. The onus, therefore, in my opinion, should be on the supermarkets to make plastic-free options more widely available. This is why I welcome the plans for a bottle deposit scheme, which the Co-Op and Iceland have recently backed publicly. It’s not the solution by any means, but it’s a start. The next step in the fight against single use plastic is for supermarkets to lead the way, and I’d implore all of the UK’s leading grocers to consider ways of making plastic free alternatives a financially sensible option for their loyal shoppers. As with the charge for plastic bags, maybe targeting people’s wallets is the incentive people need to make a more permanent change.
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When single use plastic is everywhere in your office, how do you go about cutting it down? “Ugh. Forgot my bags again, that’s another 5p.” We’ve all had it happen, finally getting to the front of a busy checkout and realising our bags are at home, somewhere in that redundant drawer in the kitchen. And whilst some see this as a modern inconvenience, we forget that less than 60 years ago, plastic bags didn't even exist. The average plastic bag is used for around 20 minutes before it is discarded. More than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used each year to manufacture them and they can persist in the environment for almost 500 years. And whilst biodegradable plastic bags sound like the perfect solution, they only degrade under certain conditions and are never really gone – they simply break down into smaller bits of plastic. In the first 6 months after the 5p levy on plastic bags was implemented, their use in the UK decreased by 85%. And whilst this is a victory for environmentalists, wildlife and, well, everyone in the long run, there are many more unnecessary single use plastic items we still use to excess that are under no scrutiny. For example, disposable coffee cups and single use plastic bottles. I have been lucky enough to have travelled quite a lot and have stayed in places where it’s advisable to avoid drinking tap water and bottled water is the safe alternative. So I find it bizarre that in the UK, where tap water is perfectly safe, the population drink 2.8 billion litres of bottled water each year. Having recently graduated from MSc in Conservation & Biodiversity at University of Exeter, where a lot of research is focused on plastics and their impact on the environment, I learnt more about the direct and indirect impact single use plastic has especially on marine life. I started with the easy options of cutting out plastic, like always asking for drinks without straws and boycotting products which are unnecessarily wrapped in plastic, but single use plastic is insidious and increasingly difficult to avoid. When I arrived at the BBC, I noticed there were disposable coffee cups on nearly every desk each morning which would be added to during the day by single use water bottles. At one point I remember seeing 4 at one co-workers desk and genuinely felt my heart sink a little. If this was just one person within an organisation of over 20,000, imagine the waste generated each day from coffee cups and bottles alone? Across the UK, it is estimated that 7 million coffee cups are used each day. The awful thing about them is that only 1 out of 400 is recycled, going through a very energy intensive process. The other 399 will end up in landfill and remain there for years. Moment on the lips, lifetime in the tips. I explained the many problems caused by single use plastic to my team as well as its prominence in our office and the fact it was actually making me sad. This gave me an idea to impose a “Naughty Jar”, where any time someone brings in a single use coffee cup or plastic bottle, 10p goes in to be donated to Surfers Against Sewage, a fantastic environmental charity working to protect our UK beaches. After only a week of this self-imposed office tax, nearly every member of the Terrific Scientific team had a reusable coffee cup and bottle. There is now so little money in the jar that I personally have to add a much greater amount when donating to the charity! But this behaviour change within the office is the real victory. It just goes to show that every little does help, and that behaviour and habit change in relation to plastic use is possible, we just need a bit of a nudge. P.S. Many coffee shops offer a small discount on hot drinks when you take in a reusable cup - yet another reason to get one for yourself!
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