Rise of the conscious consumer
New trend sweeping supermarkets, restaurants goes beyond saying no to a plastic bag, writes
They carry their own knifes and forks to restaurants, and metal straws to bars. They take the reusable cup they keep in the office to the cafe across the road to get their morning coffee.
They bring their own Tupperware for their takeaway sushi, and take mason jars to the supermarket to fill up on seeds and other bulk foods.
When it’s time to fill a prescription, they hand over a small container they’ve brought from home to the pharmacist.
Meet the environmentally shopper.
The trend goes beyond just saying no to a plastic bag at a supermarket, as more Kiwis become aware of the impact that plastic, especially singleuse, is having on our oceans and environment.
Cropping up at eateries nationwide is signage telling customers they won’t automatically be provided with plastic cutlery, or sachets of butter or tomato sauce.
Many cafes sell glass or reusable plastic cups.
Millennials have been passionate about the change but it is also going full circle for those born before 1950.
Sarah Tay, a speech therapist from Dunedin, runs workshops at community centres to advise people how to make the shopping changes she has.
For the elderly, many have the skills to go plastic-free as they had no choice before 1950 when the polyethylene plastic bag made its first appearance.
“[The classes] have booked every time.”
“It is all walks of life, I’ve seen people who are teens, young families and elderly.
“It is weighted towards young people, though there is a really passionate group of older people.”
Tay aims to send “nothing to the landfill while still being as normal as possible”.
She rarely visits supermarkets any more.
“The way for me to get the food been conscious fully the way I want it is to go directly those who make it.
“I go straight to farmers’ markets or growers for vegetables. I go straight to the butcher — they cut it for me and wrap it up and I buy more milk from a farmer.”
“It’s been two and a half years since I started. I went from producing one supermarket bag [of waste] a week to one 40-litre council bag a year.
“I started in 2015 by making reusable shopping bags a habit. Slowly I learned more and added in new habits. I’ve found that picking one or two things to change helps me make changes achievable and sustainable.”
Tay runs social media pages called Waste Free Sarah on which she gives tips and advice on how to reduce waste and cut down on plastic usage.
At Scratch Bakers, surrounded by office buildings in the Auckland CBD, one in every five customers brings in a reusable cup, compared with about one in 100 a year ago, says managing director Jonny McKessar.
He and his business partner also operate the cafe Pollen and 3 Beans Coffee.
They sell reusable cups and between the three cafes, sold about 120 a month, four times what they were selling just 12 months ago.
The change was driven by consumers, says McKessar.
“Interestingly enough it is the hospitality industry that is the start of it, consumers are so closely related to small business owners, it’s the consumers saying to hospitality owners we want compostable cups and reusable cups.
“We realised how much of everything we use can be composted, people think it is a domestic thing but commercially so much can be composted.”
The pair temporarily launched a cafe on Karangahape Rd called Scullery with the intent of being as close to zero waste as possible.
They managed to reduce waste to one rubbish bag a week but being completely waste-free was difficult.
Compostable cups were used but ordered in bulk, covered in plastic. If they wanted to serve chicken they had to use plastic gloves and receive the chicken wrapped in plastic.
At bulk food store Bin Inn, there has been a surge in people bringing their own containers which aligns with their policy of “reduce, reuse and refill where possible”, says business development manager Trevor Craig.
“This is stuff like Tupperware, glass bottles, reusable plastic bottles to cut down on the amount of plastic they would need in the shop.
“The whole impact of plastic is such a hot topic these days. People now have become acutely aware.”
The store allows customers to weigh their containers before they fill them, so they are only charged according to the weight of the goods.
“One of the biggest issues we all have to face is the challenge of all the other plastics; it will not be resolved so easily. It just can’t happen overnight,” says Craig.
Palmerston North based mum Shelley Wilson has been environmentally conscious about her shopping for the past six years.
“We have been on one income for a number of years and I found that many money-saving solutions were also waste-reducing solutions, e.g. cooking from scratch and making my own cleaning products.”
It was the voice of Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges who really opened her eyes. He lent his voice to a documentary crafted by the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
"Remember bring reusable items with you like a water bottle, a cup, bag utensils. Refuse plastic when its offered and remember to say no straw please," Bridges says.
The coalition, which Bridges supports, is combating single use plastic items.
“It was a real lightbulb moment,” says Wilson.
“I didn't realise how important it was for consumers to be part of the solution.”
Wilson has made a living from selling sustainable goods.
From her home she runs In My Kitchen, an online shop which sells products she’s made including reusable straws, reusable coffee cups, food wraps, produce bags and even a bamboo spork for the discerning shopper.
“I wanted to fill that gap in the market. I couldn’t buy everything I wanted to get, and that was annoying.
“I make a lot of alternative stuff like handkerchiefs, baby wipes, napkins, and towels to replace paper towels.”
She also sells menstrual cups, stainless steel clothes pegs and reusable baby wipes.
Bridges joins a long list of celebrities getting on the plasticreducing bandwagon, including Leonardo Dicaprio, English model Lily Cole, Entourage star Adrian Grenier, singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, Dame Vivienne Westwood and Sports Illustrated model and actress Brooklyn Decker.
According to the National Geographic, 91 per cent of plastic is not recycled and with mass production in the past 60 years, 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic now exists.
Of that, 9 per cent is recyclable.
The effect of plastic use is often not seen immediately by those disposing of the items, but is accumulated in oceans and Pacific islands thousands of kilometres away.
New Zealand’s waste is shipped to various countries, although China last year banned imports of all contaminated plastic waste.
New Zealand previously shipped 15 million tonnes of waste plastic alone to Chinese processing plants each year.
Exports to Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have surged, but stockpiles of some plastic have begun to appear around the country as certain types of products became harder to sell.
Last month the Green Party announced a work group, led by the Ministry for the Environment, which will look at whether to implement more voluntary and mandatory schemes for products such as tyres, actually
“The way for me to get the food the way I want it is to go directly those who make it.” Sarah Tay