In this short video, I talk about growing what you can, and – when you do head out to the shops – thinking about ways you can choose to refuse plastic. After all, so many foods come in their own natural packaging.

I know the whole ‘plastic-free’ idea is so much more challenging during the pandemic, especially if you live in an area that is still on high alert. If this is the case for you, just do what you can and see if there are any new ways of thinking you can adopt. For example, consider how and where you source your food and learn to refuse plastic where possible.

To learn more about growing a permaculture garden simply and easily, check out our course The Incredible Edible Garden and learn how to design your own permaculture landscape in our Permaculture Design Course.

Transcript:

Hi it’s Morag Gamble from our Permaculture Life and welcome back for another live, in the garden. We’re exploring different ways that you can think about getting rid of single-use plastics in your life it’s plastic-free July.

And there’s so many different things we can do and while it doesn’t seem to be something that makes an enormous difference. Each of these little actions actually adding all up together it does. And also something about how we start to think differently about lots of different things in our life. When we start to focus on one, it opens up a whole world. It’s like you know, opening a door, opening a portal to another world. Another way of thinking and so I really value a lot of these steps that we can take that it seemed little. But actually represent something much larger in our consciousness and you know in our culture as well today. I’d like to encourage you to choose to refuse. So to supplement the things that you’re growing in your garden when you’re heading out to the store, we really think twice before you grab a bag or grab something wrapped in plastic. And really see if you can come home with almost no plastic wrapping or even none. And one of the ways to do that is you know when you’re in the fruit and veg section, look at everything that they’ve got there and think actually. I don’t need to wrap that, I can just put it into my basket and take it to the checkout. And just put it through like that there’s absolutely no need to put it into a bag just for that short period of time. I mean so many said, I’ve said before in this series that so many single-use plastic bags have a life of 15 minutes. And then, they’re around for millennia.

So choosing to refuse is a really good concept, it’s you know it comes away before recycling. And so wherever we can just keep your foods in their simple natural form. And then you know actually if you look around in the stores often. And another part of this is that, you see that they come pre packaged in bags of apples, or tubs of strawberries or all different sorts of things that come in. In prepackaged hard plastic tubs see if there’s another way that you can get those sorts of things or choose not to buy that particular product that is completely wrapped like that. I have actually gone looking around in some of the local waste areas or here for the tubs that the stories do come in though. Because those ones actually make some really nice sprouting tubs. So if you do happen to bring them home then, we can use those. So rather than just having them one single use, you can actually use them over and over and over again as microgreens sprouting tub. So I’ll show you how to do that maybe in another time as well. So just the message today is really yep choose to refuse. And see if you can reduce the things that you bring home the plastic we bring home significantly just from taking the attitude with you all right. I’ll catch you again tomorrow, take care bye.