The Supermarket Challenge.

 In my flat I dispose of my rubbish in small bags through a disposal shoot whereas in the past, I had always put my rubbish in large bin bags and consequently, I never realised how much packaging I disposed of in one day, never mind a week. So, when I went for my next food shop, I thought i'd set myself a fun little task where I had to do my entire shop only buying products with recyclable packaging. I spent hours (in Morrisons as it happened to be that day), scanning the back of every product to see if it could be recycled. I was frustrated to see that when buying fruit and vegetables, some of the plastic packaging highlighted that it could be recycled, whilst other almost identical looking packaging could not. I decided to go for the loose fruit and vegetables and avoid the packaging completely. I was strolling past the limes and lemons when I heard a sigh from a woman next to me. She turned to me and said, 'Can you believe it? We have to use paper bags! Paper bags! Why can't they give us plastic bags?'. She reluctantly picked up a single grapefruit and put it in a brown paper bag and left. I laughed.

Credit: © Daniel Müller / Greenpeace

My little game was pointless in the grand scheme of things, but it made me realise how difficult it is to make a change even if you want to. I ended up failing my task partly because it was too time consuming, and considerably more expensive. When you are on a tight budget, the motivation to save the world then become less of an appeal.

So, when I was scrolling through Facebook this week a post by Greenpeace popped up on my news feed which caught my eye. This post demanded I send an email to my supermarket of choice, asking them to 'take action on pointless plastic packaging'. Now, I normally read posts like these presented by Greenpeace and similar organisations, but rarely do I actually follow through with them. But the memory of my last grocery shopping experience edged me on and I decided to take the call to action and do what they asked. I went and sent one of those standardised emails to Sainsbury's asking them to get rid of their pointless packaging.

They replied with a breakdown of their recycling initiatives and past target achievements.

This is what they said:

'We're committed to ensuring our packaging is as recyclable as it can be and are one of few retailers to invest in recycling facilities at many of our supermarkets.

We're also a member of the UK Plastics Pact and have committed to meeting the following collective targets by 2025:

·        Eliminate problematic or unnecessary single-use plastic packaging through redesign, innovation or alternative (re-use) delivery models

·        100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable

·        70% of plastic packaging effectively recycled or composted

·        30% average recycled content across all plastic packaging

So far, we've already achieved the following:

·        We've reduced our own brand packaging by 35% since 2005

·        Nearly 40% of our packaging already uses recycled content

·        83% of our own packaging volume that's sold is classed as widely recycled'

This article by Which? provides a comprehensive review of the targets and aims of other supermarkets (ASDA, Lidl, Waitrose etc) in the UK have made towards plastic and packaging. 

In the end, this task of only purchasing products with recyclable packaging, taught me how hard avoiding plastic and other non-recyclable materials, can be. Even if we as consumers want to avoid purchasing plastic, it is nearly impossible to do so. Although, I do think the task I set out to complete is totally achievable if you take the time to commit to it and truly think it through. But even being conscious about how much waste we as human beings are creating and being mindful when we shop, is a beginning and can help make a difference.

I also question how we as humans can be motivated to do more? We all know that plastic damages our oceans, ruins lands and kills animals, but aside from talking about it, the majority of us still do nothing.

I decided to start this blog to help educate both myself and others, on the environmental issues that exist around the world- How can we as consumers, do our part to help build a better, more sustainable world?