Supermarkets, plastic wraps and solutions to reducing your carbon footprint.
It astonishes me how everyone knows of the 'climate crisis'. And yet, we can still walk around a supermarket and see that the majority of fruit and veg is wrapped in plastic. Or worse still, have plastic wrapped veg which sits on a plastic tray. Why is this needed?
Other countries have the right idea. You can walk around a supermarket in France, collect loose fruit and vegetables and weigh it yourself. But here in the UK, we still wrap all our produce excessively. Are UK supermarkets doing enough to tackle the single use plastic crisis?
Unsurprisingly no.
It's much cheaper to buy vegetables wrapped than loose. How do we equate that?
For most people, cost comes before climate change and sustainable living. So how can we go about helping our planet and reducing our spending at the same time? There is a way. There are many ways to go about reducing cost but still moving towards a more sustainable environmentally friendly way of life. I will touch on a few:
Buy locally.
Some vegetables are shipped from overseas. It's useful to check the wrapping and see where the vegetables you pick up in the supermarket are from. This is why buying locally is so much better for the environment. It helps reduce your carbon footprint and benefits local businesses and farmers.
Make your own fruit and veg garden.
Growing your own vegetables reduces your carbon footprint. This is why I recommend planting some seeds and watching your own veggies grow. This also gives you satisfaction in growing your own food. It is also cheaper than buying your own from a supermarket. Plus, there's no plastic pollution! You know exactly where your vegetables have come from!
But why should we try and reduce our plastic usage?
According to Surfers Against Sewage, approximately 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic weighing 269,000 tons now exist in our seas with current estimates showing that at least eight million pieces of plastic are entering the oceans every single day. This statistic is continuously increasing. Which is reason enough to keep reducing our single use plastic consumption.