Environmental ninjas with amarket trolley
Ijingle and I jangle when I walk. I clink and I clank and I never travel light. Mine is an ironically heavy burden because although I try to tread lightly on this earth, my bag overflows with keep cups, glass bottles and jars. I ammy own musical interlude – alternative jazz styles with heavy percussion.
The kids call me the bag lady. I can never find my keys and my metal straw pokes me in the hip daily.
But it’s my small price to pay for all the misdeeds I have done to the planet in the past. This ridiculous overflowing bag of landfill-saving detritus is my karma for being oblivious for so many years to what my blind consumerism was doing.
And so now I domy circuit around my favourite plastic-free shop, my bulk bin local and the vege shop that has things wrapper-free. And my clinking of jars becomes my rebel song.
Supermarkets? Well they are kind of my dreaded place. My climate-change anxiety goes into overload when I see the plastic burdened aisles. I want to scream. I want to shout, but instead I make myself go into environmental ninja mode.
First I go to the deli and ask nicely in my most polite ninja voice to please just use paper to wrap my food. The staff are generally awesome at this and I do an inward happy dance at this progression.
A year ago, this would have been a battle with managers called to explain to the weirdo hippy chick why plastic was necessary for health and safety reasons.
I then eagle eye my way up the aisles looking for compostable, cardboard or paper packaging and this can make for some interesting choices. Because, heck, let’s face it, there is not a huge array of food packaged this way. But when I find something I high five whatever child is with me.
My shopping trolley does not look like it did before. For starters it’s not chocka. This is not our only resource for food gathering now and the less I have to get from supermarkets, the better.
I admit still buying some things in plastic. We are far from perfect. Cheese is my guilty omission as is awhole list of things I have not yet found a solution for. But the things I thought of as necessities before are dropping off slowly.
Finding alternatives, letting go of ‘‘must haves’’ and just saying ‘‘no’’, these things are gaining momentum. We are getting more and more ninja.
I practically hug other ninja shoppers. When I see people clutching their string totes and putting a loaf of bread from the bakery into a paper bag my little heart sings. ‘‘Rebel for life’’ I want to shout, but instead I smile and shine out my solidarity.
I don’t even go down the toiletries aisle any more. We use solid soap, shampoo and conditioner bars made by locals, and deodorant encased in cardboard.
Face products I get from an awesome lady who dropsmy products to me in reused glass jars and I get advice for free with a smile added in. And guess what people? We may be shoved into the hippy category by many, but we aren’t smelly. Who would have thought?
On the way home we swing by the farm shop where we get our milk unpasteurised on tap. No plastic bottles, no big, bad company – just milk from cows that we can say hi to. And we have also found that the other people we encounter filling their clinking and clanking glass bottles always want a natter. Fancy that eh? People talking to each other? So ninja.
We jingle and we jangle. We rattle and we shake, butwe also rock and roll this caring-for-our-planet vibe because it’s our groove, our unconventional rebel song.
We may be shoved into the hippy category by many, but we aren’t smelly. Who would have thought?