A Plastic-Free Christmas: Good Things Come in Plastic-Free Packages

Christmas is less than two weeks away and I, like so many others, have spent the last month agonizing over what gifts to buy my family and friends. If you’ve read my other blog posts, you’d know that I am slowly progressing towards (and documenting) a plastic-free lifestyle. This has further convoluted the already complicated Christmas shopping “experience”.

To bring you up to date, over the last couple weeks I have taken the following baby-steps to reduce my plastic footprint:

Step #1: Cease using plastic shopping bags

A Charlie Brown Christmas

This step was the easiest of all of my self-imposed steps. I hardly ever used plastic shopping bags to begin with, but occasionally I would forget my cloth bag and have to pay the astronomical (I'm being sarcastic) 5 cent fee at the grocery store in order to carry my purchases home. Over the last couple weeks, I’ve started taking this step more seriously. Firstly, I have tried to carry a cloth bag with me whereever I go; however, if I am out and I don’t have a cloth bag with me, I don’t buy anything that won’t fit in my purse. This rule helps me save money and has stopped me from making those impulse purchases that are especially common around the holidays, but most importantly, it stops me from accumulating plastic bags!

Step #2: Stop buying plastic water bottles

I’ve never had a problem with drinking tap water, but when I was out shopping or at the gym I would sometimes purchase water in a plastic bottle. A couple months ago I put an end to that by stealing a reusable stainless steel water bottle from my mom and taking it with me everywhere. Problem solved! I highly recommend doing this (maybe not stealing from your own mother, but perhaps just buying one. I think they're less than $5 at most places).

Step #3: No more plastic garbage bags

I’d be lying if I said I stopped using plastic garbage bags entirely. I have stopped buying them though. The truth is that there is a ton of them sitting under my kitchen sink and I swear that once I’m done using them all up, I won’t purchase another one ever again. Honestly though, this has been one of the biggest challenges of reducing my plastic consumption so far. I have yet to find a good replacement for plastic garbage bags. I tried using paper bags, but they got awfully soggy and the mess on my kitchen floor after trying to take the bag out of the trash bin wasn’t encouraging.

The other problem is that I have a pet rabbit (Mr. Small, pictured above) and I usually clean his cage by dumping all of his shavings into a big green plastic garbage bag. Anything smaller winds up with rabbit shavings and poop all over my floor. What’s the answer to this problem? *Sigh* I do not know.

At least I am making progress in other ways. I no longer put my recycling in a plastic garbage bag, I now use a reusable bin. Ah, progress!

Step #4: Plastic covered foods are no longer edible

This has actually turned out to be my favourite step. I’ve started making so many great foods at home that I couldn’t find plastic-free in the grocery store. This includes homemade hummus, soup, peanut butter, jam (with fruit that isn’t wrapped in plastic), bread, cookies, pasta sauce, guacamole, salsa, and granola. I have to say that I am a pretty awesome cook and an even better baker! Next step for me will be learning to make yogurt, which I dare you to find in anything other than a plastic container! It's one of my favourites, so if I ever want to eat it again, I'm going to have to learn!

Other changes I've made: I now always buy free-range eggs in cardboard packaging, I avoid fruits and vegetables wrapped in cellophane or plastic bags, and I now go to bulk food stores so I can get foods in paper bags (turns out to be cheaper, too). I went to the Nuthouse at Bloor & Brock and bought organic oats, raisins, almonds, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds to make homemade granola and it cost me less than $10! And I got so much out of the recipe that it’ll last me a couple months!

The difficulties I am having though, are in buying meats and cheeses. I have yet to find meat that is not wrapped in plastic (and to be honest, if I did find it, I’m not sure if I would eat it). I am, however, going to check out a new organic butcher on Roncesvalles, Rowe Farms, and see if they would be able to give me meat wrapped in paper. Stay tuned!

Step #5: Discontinue Ziplock Bag use

I now make a conscious effort (and I am embarrassed to say that I never did before) to use reusable containers for everything from leftovers to lunches, instead of those silly, wasteful, little plastic bags or clingwrap. This has been an easy step so far and has made a huge difference in how much plastic I have had to throw away. I even asked Santa to bring me reusable containers made from glass instead of the plastic tuber-ware ones.

Step #6: Collect the plastics that I am still using

I’m now collecting all the other plastics I’ve been using to see where I need to make further improvements. I have a plastic bag hanging on a doorknob in my kitchen and instead of recycling, I throw every bit of plastic I am done with into the bag to see what I have accumulated over the last month. In the bag you will find, shampoo bottles, body wash, cough syrup, a ketchup bottle, conditioner bottles, body spray and perfume bottles, make-up containers, various wrappers from toilet paper, granola, macaroni, and yogurt cups, caps from aerosol cans, cleaning supply bottles, plastic mesh from a box of oranges, and gum wrappers (I chew a lot of gum). Now everytime I put something in there, I have to figure out how to get the product without the plastic. I’ve resolved the granola issue, but I am at a loss when it comes to toilet paper.  

Although I have been quite creative in thinking up alternatives to plastics in my every day life, Christmas created an entirely new challenge since it involved other people. I realized that so many things are made of plastic, packaged in plastic, or wrapped in plastic. Good grief, how was I ever to stay environmentally conscious and bring a smile to my loved ones' faces? It took time and a lot of thought, but I finally realized that many good things come in plastic-free packages as well. Christmas doesn't have to be full of plastic waste!

Taking this into consideration, I made a whole bunch of homemade gifts and learned for the first time how to can and preserve foods. The process isn’t that hard and it made me wonder why I hadn’t done it a long time ago. So, voila! I have made canned peanut butter, canned blackberry, strawberry, & raspberry jam, and homemade granola in glass jars, wrapped in paper, for my family and friends. It’s homemade, organic, filled with love, and 100% plastic-free. Bon appétit!

And, oh yes, Merry Christmas!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for my next blog post,

The 5¢ Debate!

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