AFFORDABLE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR WEEKLY SHOP MORE ECO-FRIENDLY

There is no better place to help the environment than your weekly grocery shop, writes Louise McBride

CLIMATE change is high on the public agenda — and for good reason. Sea levels could rise by over one metre by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow strongly, according to a major United Nations report which was published last month. This could have disastrous consequences for the more than 1.4 billion people living in low-lying coastal areas, high mountains, the Arctic, and small island developing states — and, indeed, for many others. The report also highlighted how the warming of our oceans has cut the supply of oxygen and nutrients for marine life.

There are any number of startling statistics and reports which show the impact that rising greenhouse gases and our throwaway culture are having on the environment.

Plastic waste is a huge problem. About seven out of 10 deep-water fish off the coast of Ireland have eaten plastic, according to a study carried out by marine biologists at NUI Galway in February 2018. There will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, according to a report published a few years ago by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

There are small, affordable steps which you can take to help the environment — and there is no better place to start this than in your weekly shop.

BUY A REUSABLE WATER BOTTLE

Stop buying single-use plastic bottles — buy reusable water bottles instead. It’s estimated to take around 450 years for a plastic bottle to break down. You can buy a good reusable water bottle for between €10 and €20 — sometimes less.

Furthermore, if you are out and about, you can refill reusable water bottles for free in more than 850 public refill locations. You can find a list of these locations at refill.ie.

BUY YOGHURTS IN RECYCLABLE POTS

Many — but not all —yoghurt pots are recyclable. There should be a number on your yoghurt pot which indicates the type of plastic it is made of. Check this number. Should your yoghurt pot have ‘PVC3’ or ‘PS6’ on it, it usually cannot go into recycling bins in Ireland. However, yoghurt pots with ‘PET 1’, ‘HDPE2’, ‘LDPE4’ and ‘PP5’ can usually go into your green bin.

So, to ensure you are buying yoghurt pots which can be recycled, only buy those which are accepted by your green bin. Apply the same rule to other plastic-packaged items. Many of the items you throw into your shopping trolley when getting your weekly groceries are packaged in plastic. You can put a lot — but not all — of this plastic packaging into your recycling bin. Furthermore, while recycling is good, it still uses a lot of energy and other resources. So cut back on the amount of plastic-packaged items you buy.

BUY BOTTLES OF MILK

Getting your milk in reusable glass bottles — rather than in plastic cartons — is one way to reduce the amount of plastic food packaging you buy. It is not an option open to most of us yet but, in some areas, milk bottles are making a comeback.

For example, Chris Maloney, owner of Ballymac Dairy in Co Kerry, delivers pasteurised, non-homogenised milk to about 150 homes in Tralee. His milk — which is packaged in glass bottles — is also sold in a number of small post office shops, and in a few Centra and Spar stores in Kerry. It costs about €1.65 for a litre of home-delivered Ballymac Dairy milk — as well as a delivery charge of between 50c and €2 (depending on how near to the centre of Tralee the home is). So in total, it could cost about €10.50 to get six litres of the milk delivered to your home a week (assuming the delivery charge is 60c).

The Ballymac Dairy milk is usually more expensive to buy in the shops than to get homedelivered, as it typically costs between €1.80 and €2 a litre in a shop, depending on the store, according to Maloney. The milk bottles are returnable and so are reused — which is important if you are switching to glass milk bottles to help the environment.

Should you want to change to glass bottles, ask your local store if it — or a nearby outlet — sells them. Some SuperValu stores sell milk in glass bottles. For example, Collins SuperValu in Carrigaline, Co Cork sells Gloun Cross Dairy milk in one-pint bottles for €2.20 and two-litre glass bottles for €2.50, with customers getting 70c back on all bottles when they return them.

Buying your milk in glass bottles could be more expensive than buying it in plastic packaging — but it could still be a change you can afford to make. Be sure to do it right though — reuse your glass bottles for milk. Use a local milk man if getting your milk delivered, as the environmental footprint of a local delivery will usually be smaller than a long-distance delivery.

TACKLE YOUR LUNCHBOX

Parents of school-going children can help the environment by buying reusable sandwich bags or reusable sandwich wrap — rather than wrapping sandwiches in cling film or plastic bags. You can buy either from a number of ecofriendly online shops (such as littlegreenshop.ie or earthmother.ie) and from some supermarkets.

There will be an initial outlay — particularly if you have a few children — but as well as helping the environment, you will save on the cost of cling film and other disposable plastic packaging going forward.

A large reusable sandwich bag costs €6 on littlegreenshop.ie, while there are also a range of them on earthmother.ie priced at around €7 a pop. You can buy reusable beeswax sandwich wrap on earthmother.ie for €10.99 (medium-size pack). There is a reusable sandwich wrap on littlegreenshop.ie for around €10.

You can also buy reusable straws from either of these online shops. A pack of reusable bamboo straws costs €7.50 on littlegreenshop.ie. Expect to pay around €10 or €11 for between three and four reusable stainless steel straws. Check with your local shop too. Centra recently introduced an eco-range in more than 30 stores — which includes a beeswax sandwich wrap.

In late August, SuperValu launched a trial range of eco-friendly products — including a beeswax sandwich wrap — in 12 of its stores.

These stores include O’Keeffe’s SuperValu in Bantry, Scally’s SuperValu in Clonakilty, Kavanagh’s SuperValu in Dungloe, and SuperValu in the Pavilions Shopping Centre in Swords.

Another way to make your lunch more ecofriendly is to bring your own reusable lunchbox along to deli counters and canteens — and to fill this up rather than buying items for your lunch in a disposable plastic tray.

“There are a lot of deli counters which will fill up a reusable lunch box if you ask them to,” said Katie Smith, head of operations at ChangeX, a company which partners with social entrepreneurs to improve communities. ChangeX is behind the Plastic Free 4 Schools programme — which helps schools avoid single-use plastics, reduce waste and maximise recycling.

GET AN ECO TOOTHBRUSH

It is estimated that more than 3.5 billion toothbrushes are produced in the world each year — and that many of these end up in landfill and oceans. A typical toothbrush takes about 450 years to biodegrade and as you could easily go through four toothbrushes a year (if you swap them every three months), getting a biodegradable one is another affordable way to help the environment.

An Irish couple — Niamh McGill and Joe Finnegan from Ashbourne — have just invented a biodegradable toothbrush known as Bambooth.

An individual Bambooth toothbrush costs £4.99 (about €5.60, depending on the exchange rate at the time you buy) — plus shipping. You can get a biodegradable children’s toothbrush for €4.99 on earthmother.ie.

START SMALL

From compostable rubber gloves to eco-friendly washing powder; from reusable organic cotton cleansing pads (for make-up removal) to reusable nappies and so on, there are a huge amount of eco-friendly products that can be bought today.

These products often cost more than their non-eco-friendly versions — so your household budget may not stretch to include too many of them in your weekly shop.

However, even if you can buy a few ecofriendly items each week, and concentrate on buying items where the packaging is recyclable or compostable, it is a step in the right direction.