So many people go
shopping for fruit and vegetables without thinking. We've all done it, putting everything in a
separate plastic bag: pumpkin, cucumber, leek,… and why?
I bought a spaghetti
squash the other day, at a local greengrocer. I was carrying my own bags, he
could see that. Yet, he wrapped the squash in a plastic bag before handing it
to me.
Another thing: my
husband came home from the supermarket the other day, with a picture of a
plastic tray, the size of more or less half a litre of water. In it was a piece
of ginger of 80 grams. It was priced at 1.99 EUR, the price of ginger being
24.88 EUR/kilo!!!
The shop next door, a
local greengrocer, was selling ginger in bulk at 2.95 EUR/kilo.
Putting 2 and 2
together, this means 80 grams of ginger (the price in bulk being 2.95 EUR/kilo)
costs 0.236 EUR, the price of the packaging being 1.754 EUR! And we are all
buying it (pun intended)! Why?
So much for the price
we are willing to pay for waste.
How about the volume of plastic? The packaging
of fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry and fish takes up most of our bin space.
To compare it on a
weekly basis, I went shopping for fruit and veg in the supermarket. I brought
back this lot:
I admit, they do look
yummy. Then I took out all of the food and left the packaging on the same
table:
Not that yummy
anymore, is it? You are looking at 131 grams of waste, 75 grams of which is
plastic (for a family of 2). That is 3.406 kilos of waste per year per person
or 34.06 kilo per person per 10 years!
One week later, I did
the same shopping at the greengrocer around the corner:
And this is only the
packaging:
Better! You are
looking at 18 grams of waste, 9 grams of which is plastic (for a family of 2)!
That is 0.468 kilos of waste per year per person or 4.68 kilo per person per 10
years!
I also compared the
price. For 2 avocados, 1 kg of kiwi fruit, 1 cucumber, 1 kg of nectarines, 1
bunch of radish, 400 grams of lettuce, 760 g of vine tomatoes, 3 peppers, 500
grams of red onions, 500 grams of white onions and 1 kg of mandarins, I paid 27.01
EUR at the supermarket and 18.78 EUR at the local greengrocer’s. The
supermarket is 43% more expensive!
What issues have I
encountered shopping at the local greengrocer?
1. In the supermarket, I can buy leaf
lettuce ready for consumption. The lettuce from the greengrocer’s I have to
clean myself. I don’t mind washing my own lettuce but I love the young lettuce
leaves, which are only sold in plastic bags, sometimes even in a plastic box
and then wrapped in a plastic bag! During the summer, I might try growing my
own young lettuce leaves on the rooftop, although we live in a fairly polluted
part of town. I might not be doing us any favours. I will think about it.
2. The tomatoes on the vine need to be
put in a bag or they will roll all over the counter when you check out. The
reason is that the local greengrocer’s vegetables are a lot riper than those of
the supermarket. So, the first time I passed the check out, it was quite
embarrassing. But a solution has been found! See below. The fact that all
vegetables are a lot riper also means that I cannot always buy vegetables for a
whole week. I might have to shop twice.
3. The local greengrocer doesn’t always
have what I want. For ordinary food shopping, that is acceptable. For dinner
parties, I might have to go a shop where I know I will find what I need. This
may need some planning in advance, but that’s OK.
4. The local greengrocer’s assortment
of goods is limited. I can do all of my weekly shopping at the supermarket. I
can’t do all of my shopping at the greengrocer’s. For instance, he doesn’t sell
meat and fish, the spreads we are used to. I will still have to visit other
shops to do all of my weekly shopping.
So how did we solve
the problem that some fruit and vegetables, like beans, vine tomatoes,
mandarins still need a bag to keep them together?
One of my neighbours
came up with the solution. She is a blogger herself and blogs about all sorts
of things, including the environment. You can find her blog here. She showed me the vegetables
shopping bags that she had bought online. I bought a packet of 5 bags.
They are nylon,
that’s not so good, but they can and will be used a lot more often than the
single-use plastic bags you find in the shops themselves. We started using them
but we do have to remind ourselves not to forget them before we leave the
house. It is a habit we have to grow into.
And we have left the
house without these bags, and it will happen again. But we are slowly getting
there. When we forget the bags, we try to put as many fruit and veg into the
same bag. In the supermarket, if you have to weigh your fruit and veg, we put
the stickers all on 1 bag or even on the packaging of another product we buy.
If they sell cucumber
individually wrapped in plastic, we’re not eating cucumber that week, full
stop. If they don’t sell aubergine without plastic, we will try another shop
first. On some weeks, all the greengrocers only sell packed aubergine, on some
weeks they don’t. I guess they all buy at the same wholesale market.
By doing this, we
have been able to hold onto our bin 3 times longer than before! We used to put
out a 60 litre bin liner every week. Now, we put one out every 3 weeks!
That has also
required us to find a solution about food waste itself, because that makes the
bin smelly. My kind neighbour Monique has offered her green container and
compost barrel for us to put our degradable food waste in. More about that in another chapter.
So the balance of
this project:
Environmental
impact
On a yearly basis, we
used to produce 3.4 kg of waste per person or 6.8 kg for the both of us.
Now, with my little
fruit & veg nylon shopping bags, I buy basically plastic-free, with the
exception of young lettuce leaves and mushrooms (which you can hardly find
without plastic). I don’t know how much that will be but let’s take a
conservative 0.4 kg/year per person or 0.8 kg/year for 2 people.
That is a total
reduction of 6.0 kg/year for 2 people.
Financial impact
Based on this one
experiment, fruit and veg is 43% cheaper. This will not always be the case. It
very much depends on the season and what I need that week but on average, the
local greengrocer is much cheaper. Let’s assume a comfortable 30% difference.
The 5 little bags were
an investment of 12 EUR. I don’t know how long they will last, but they don’t
show any signs of wear and tear yet. When they are worn out, I will buy cotton
ones.
The investment not
included, this is a positive balance (at a price difference of 30%) of more
than 400 EUR /year.
Space impact
We gain the space of
the empty (and always messy) plastic bags stock.
We lose the space of the
5 fruit & veg bags...
Time and effort
impact
We lose time because
we cannot do all of our shopping at the local greengrocer. I still have to go
to the butcher, the baker, the fishmonger…
Also the fruit &
veg sold at the local greengrocer doesn’t always last a week, which means I
might have to shop more frequently.
Another “loss” is
that the local greengrocer does not always have what I want or need when I want
to cook something special. I sometimes have to go back to the supermarket for
special mushrooms, fresher beans, etc.
Balance: apart from
the effort, a big “win”.
Next post: coffee and
tea!
On a Facebook page called ‘free & recycled Antwerp” I
found a guy who was looking for old nail varnish which he uses to make little
pieces of art. 
