How We Survived Living Plastic Free for a Year – Zero Waste Family of Four

Guest Post

We chose a ‘good’ year to do plastic free in our kitchen ‘2020’, although it wasn’t a great year for many reasons, it paved the way for the four of us to take a step back from fast paced modern life.

Potentially, even if there wasn’t a lock down, I certainly think we were already heading towards this way of life. Living free from processed food and avoiding anything made in factory was our aim, although was a conscious decision on both our parts to eliminate plastic, we didn’t just dip our toes in we went all in. Making everything from scratch helped keep us going through lock down, we didn’t put a time limit on it, but it helped us cope with forced isolation and definitely helped our guts.

We had already had some essential kitchen appliances for making our own nut milks, (our Nutramilk, although there are other brands). We already had a lot of basics, such as large cast iron and Falk pans, (for bulk cooking). I found the water filter and large fridge/freezer also extremely handy. I would recommend some sort of help from modern technology for zero waste living, as trust me making oat milk with a sieve and a nut bag for a family of four was extremely time consuming.  To avoid plastic bottles, I had already invested in a Berkey water filter a few years prior, which helped us making our own vegetable stock and nut milks, and for soaking other pulses and grains.

I’m sure there are an array of different ways of being completely plastic free, we didn’t exactly read how to do this, it just slowly became the way in which we survived plastic free living. I should say thrived, but obviously survived is more appropriate because we took it to a basic survival level of cooking and eating, we didn’t have many luxuries (if any) I think my husband found this harder than me.

1. Zero Waste Pantry

It was easier to summarize the process of us becoming plastic free, in these five steps below.

A well-stocked pantry, and decent storage! Stashers, glass jars and stainless steel are our personal favourite.

From the get-go I didn’t start labelling everything and wasn’t particularly organised, which I soon regretted especially when completely forgetting the name of certain herbs. It also became apparent that I needed to get grains with good dates. I know now that is ESSENTIAL for all my storage in my plastic free pantry to properly clean out the jars, sterilize before any use. I wish I had done this before my some of my massive orders, as I didn’t order enough jars to start.

I had a set aside some money to set up my pantry after I lost my best friend, I thought it be appropriate, him being the person that got me invested in living green, that the money he left me went toward my garden and kitchen.  Buying dozens of jars and large stainless steel containers can be expensive, but I personally believe I’m healthier and happier for it and also in case of some kind of apocalyptic situations arising I am well prepared (joking… well sort of).

We also found out about silicone storage bags, for freezing, and cooking with, in particular a brand called Stasher, which we actually bought around 50 of these. I also made use of old glass jars or plastic tubs!

I also am a very visual person and I can get joy out of making my pantry look inviting, I did love doing the odd google search for ‘cool ideas for pantries’, which helps when building your plastic free collection. This is a photo of my old pantry as my current pantry is being built at our new home, essentially I just used an old book case see photos above.

2. Vegetable Boxes

Companies we tried for veg boxes

I used three companies:

• The Organic Delivery Company
• Pikt
• Along with a weekly Riverford– the zero waste box (prior to knowing about Rerooted)

We also loved the Tomato Stall, a tomato producer based on the Isle of White, which had an option for a completely plastic free delivery of UK grown tomatoes.  We still bought the odd jar of passata but it meant we could use these glass jars for our own home-made passata, which is actually more delicious! I did my research and I went for the decision to do veg boxes and organic veg shops like Barra (in Sheffield) over regular market stalls.

At the start of plastic free living I always ordered far more than I needed and freeze any surplus fruit or stock up on fruit and store for a later dates in stashers.

 You may think you don’t need any extra frozen kiwis or berries in your freezer but getting berries and fruit plastic free is extremely hard if you don’t prepare your more likely to need to go to the shop and buy plastic. Having an excess of fresh fruit and veg in you veg boxes is great for smoothies, quick snacks for kids, pies, jams (make sure the day your veg boxes arrive you have some free time to organise, blanche it all etc, but this is when you first start to stock up). I’ve also frozen beans, carrots broccoli and various other items.

3. Dried Goods

Where to buy dried goods and other kitchen shopping? Every month or so we would do our dried goods shop but we had to make sure we had the right amount of jars so you can transfer out your delivery straight away.   Always have too many jars just in case!

I wouldn’t have survived without Pimhills and Hodmedods, they have been such fab companies for bulk buying oats and other grains, which came delivered in compostable sacks. Before the pantry became what it is today, we already used this both these British and award winning companies our grains to arrive plastic free and we had already gotten used to always having oats in and never buying oats or lentils as the oats we bought were in 5kg to 25kg bags.  It’s safe to say before we learnt to make granola and also got other grains such as quinoa in bulk we were getting pretty sick of oat milk and porridge.

Other websites I’d recommend as well as your local zero waste and refill shops are as follows for dried goods & other great kitchen buys;

Zero Waste Bulk Foods, Lifeforce organics, Ethical superstore, Yumbles,

The Real Plastic Free,  Sea No Waste Boobalou , Dash vegan 

4. Plastic Free Treats

Buying plastic free rather than cooking from scratch (plastic free treats do exist).

Yumbles have so many plastic free options, some of the vegan cheeses are fantastic, along with plastic free sweets and chocolate. A personal favourite of mine, which now should be completely plastic free chocolate (bar the masking tape on the delivery box) is Luisa’s Vegan Chocolates she is just fab, so ethical an way tastier than dairy chocolate. It really helped me get through the year ordering plastic free fudge! There are also many plastic free goodies mentioned on the websites above. A lot of alcohol is plastic free although not necessarily organic or vegan. As I was also cutting out a lot of processed sugars at the time, I would make raspberry and rhubarb loose leaf tea and put vanilla and inulin syrup to help with my cravings.

I’ve also made Vietnamese coffees with condensed coconut milk (just make sure the tin isn’t lined with plastic).   You can easily buy Algarve syrup that’s in a glass jar (the lid is plastic), sugar and maple syrup all plastic free, which means essentially any cakes, puddings, possets can also be plastic free although I know it’s not technically buying plastic free, there is a small amount of cooking, baking involved.  Also using aquafaba from cooking beans and in chickpea tins (once again not lined with plastic) can make meringues and other sweet treats.

5. Key Staple Meals

Key staple meals, sauces, cereals that we stored.

Home-made Passata (using isle of wright Tomato Company)

Home-made stock frozen and some in the fridge using up any old excess veg (this recipe)

Homemade bagels stored frozen and in the bread bin (this recipe)

Homemade granola (using this recipe)

 When looking at what meals you can bulk cook for early week/ mid-week busy nights when you don’t feel like cooking, I would say have a couple of your best dishes you can cook really well and don’t get bored of, essentially freeze your favourites. For all these dishes I had done plastic free, my favourites I always have in the freezer where soups, stews, pasta dishes etc. I could probably have stored more than these, but these are my staples that I always have in copying the all plants approach. All these vegan meals can be made from ingredients that are delivered plastic free to you house from the stores I mentioned above.

 Having a wide range of recipes in mind for staple dishes, some may also seem great but making these from scratch with having completely different herbs and spices for each dish can be difficult when also building a pantry if you don’t find some similarity in the dishes you chose. Vegan for good by Rita Serrano gives a great list for some essential spices and herbs and also has some amazing recipes.

For a year and half now we’ve been making all plants vegan mac and greens from scratch with about a dozen different ingredients, now we freeze in bulk we don’t have to cook it as often, be sure you don’t get bored of your key dishes easily. A key ingredient in all plants mac and greens, is miso, which we already used for soups, another reason this is one of our main dishes. Along with the fact that kale grows in our garden in abundance.

To Summarize:

Overall I felt I had such extremely lucky to have had a year with my young children in my garden and kitchen immersed in nature, and have the chance to live this way with no pressure and it gave me a great sense of achievement making things completely from scratch as a vegan mum making oat milk and soya milk with my daughter and son from start to finish, to explain the process and where the soya and oats were grown and even making some rather odd coloured pistachio milks and multi coloured donuts.

Getting a veg box delivered seemed as though this was the easiest part of the plastic free year, there are plenty of choices now from local farms to countrywide delivery boxes. Sadly though from having a pantry there is waste, not that this can’t be solved but I’ve accidently over ordered too many bay leaves and potentially not used it as much as I thought and so my daughters used it for crafts or I’ve given a jar to my mum either way it’s not technically waste to me but it makes me realise that it’s all a learning curve and on a positive note I’ve learnt I can’t live without.

I personally take a great joy in home-made meals, but I also I took the time to change and learn this is important, I grew up in a household where microwaved pasta was a regular meal, along with never eating dinner round a table. Having a tomato vegan stew or TVP mince Bolognese brings me a lot of joy. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to survive plastic free and organic had it not been for my views and choices on raising our two children a particular way. The lockdown period as for most of it we were learning together how to live an eco conscious, slow and natural life.

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