One week of trash…

Lees dit artikel in het Nederlands: Afval van één week…

I’m one week in both my challenges. Time to see what’s in my garbage bags!

In the bag with residual waste, I find:
– an empty bag of dry catfood
– 2 blister packs of medication
– a piece of string
– 2 x foil for bouillon cubes
– 3 ribbons from a present
– 2 trays of meat
– a plastic-paper like lid that closed a plastic box with nuts
– 2x the wrapping of a delicious chocolate

Which of these can I prevent in time?
– I will need the cat food, but I recently bought some 6 kg bags instead of 2 kg (this smaller bag I had taken to check if the cats like this food). I will not be able to avoid this packaging completely, but I hope to keep it to a minimum. Since this is plastic with an aluminum foil on the inside or something like that, I do not think that this is allowed in the bag for plastic waste …
– medication I will have to keep taking. And this medicine only comes in blister pack. Other medicines I take are either in plastic containers or in blister packs. I fear that I can not ask the pharmacist if I can take the medicines in my own glass jar …
– once the bouillon cubes (vegetable broth) are finished, I could try to spice my soup in such a way that I do not miss the broth.
– I hope to avoid gifts that come in packaging, the rest of the year! I have already Told some people that I don’t want any stuff for my birthday, so there wont be anything to wrap, will it?
– Last week I bought meat in the supermarket. This meat is pre-packaged in foam trays with plastic foil. I prefer not to eat any meat at all, but in autumn and winter my body seems to need it (in small quantities). This week I am going to look for a butcher on the way to work, where I can take my own boxes to pack the meat
– nuts and seeds you buy in the supermarket, come in plastic boxes with a lid of plastic-paper. Fortunately I occasionally pass by a packing-free store where I can buy nuts and seeds. From now on I will store my stock there every time I pass by so I don’t have to by these in the supermarket anymore.
– the celebrations are over and the goodies are almost finished. From now on, I will be looking for occasional chocolate that will not result in extra waste. The question is whether that can be found. I fear that most of the chocolate is in a kind of aluminum foil or plastic, with a paper package around it. I’ll have some searching to do! Or stop the chocolate completely …

In the bag for plastic bottles, metal and drink cartons, I found this:
– 1 plastic bottle of cream
– 2 cans and lids of cat food
– 1 cup of cat food

What can I avoid in the future?
– in any case, cream is rarely to be found in my kitchen. The holidays are over, so …
– cat food: I try to limit the industrial cat food. This is how I cook my own food for my cats: stewed vegetables with a little bit of herbs and some berries, nuts, seeds and then a lot of raw meat. But I’m not so sure my brews contain all the nutrients that my cats need. So I give them canned food once a day, high-quality food that is suitable for consumption by people. The advantage of this more expensive, high-quality food is that they need much less to be saturated. So they last longer with one can than when I give them a cheaper brand. That way I try to limit the waste. But these little creatures have to eat, so I can’t realy avoid these cans … Maybe one day I’ll be able to immerse myself in the art of self-cooking for your cats. Then the cans are a thing of the past!
– in my cupboards there are still cans of beans, fish and coconut cream. They will find their way to this garbage bag after some time. Beans can also be bought dried (in the packagefree store), fish can be bought fresh (but the canned mackerel is so easy and tasty!) and for the coconut cream I have not found an alternative.
– there will also be an empty box of milk every now and then ( almond milk, coconut milk or soy milk) that ends up in this bag. I could make this milk myself, but I’m not that far yet … Maybe that will be another challenge?