Invest in a Wasteless Future

A Wasteless Pantry is an investment in a better future, as anything of worth would be.

You exercise and eat well as an investment in your health. You might sign up for a mortgage as an investment in future financial security. In much the same way transitioning to a wasteless pantry or lifestyle is an investment in the future. You invest time and money getting organized and setting up with reusables but unlike exercise and healthy eating if you stop using your reusable for a couple of weeks you can pick up exactly where you left off once you get back into it – your health probably isn’t so forgiving!

In fashion there is this concept about cost per wear. If we applied this to your quality reusable the initial outlay might look like this:

Reusable bag (like an Onya Original Shopping Bag)

$12.50 initial costOnya-Original-Apple-Purple-Garden-150x150

Used once per week for the next 10 years = 2 cents per use + no waste

Vs

Supermarket ‘green bag’

$2 to $5 initial cost

Used once per week for the next 10 years = 2 cents per use + 3 bags being sent to landfill over that time (I’m being generous here as mine have never lasted more than a two years)

OR

onya-weigh

Produce Bags (like our cloth bags or Onya mesh ones)

Chilli-Onya-Weigh-5-150x150

$3 initial cost each

Used once per week for the next 10 years (I’m being conservative here as one customer has been using theirs for 20 years) = less than 1 cent per use + no waste

Vs

Plastic bags

1 cent each initial cost (incorporated into the cost of your goods)

Used once each for one purchase per week over the next 10 years = 1 cent per use + 520 plastic bags being sent to landfill

OR

Onya-120527-41-1

Reusable drink bottle (like an H2Onya)

H2-Onya-750ml-group-150x150

$18.95 to $25.95 initial cost plus free water from a tap

Filled once per day for the next 5 years (I know they last longer but this is going to be ridiculous) = 7 to 10 cents per use + no waste

Vs

Bottled water (I’ll pick the cheapest brand at a supermarket for comparison)

70 cents initial cost

One bottle per day for the next 5 years = 70 cents per use ($182 over that time!) + 260 bottles being wasted

I think you can see where I’m going with this – reusables win every time!! This goes for hankies vs tissues, lunchboxes/wraps vs clingwrap, JuJu cups vs tampons, cloth nappies vs disposable nappies, fresh loose coffee & tea including the plunger vs coffee pods or instant or teabags. Every time reusable wins for the environment but also for your pocket!


header-onya-back

There is a lot of confusion as to the impact that these things make. Consider this:

Every water bottle used requires 3 litres of water to produce 1 litre of bottled water and it takes 3.4 megajoules of energy!! And that’s just to manufacture.

More energy is needed to fill the bottles with water at the factory, move it by truck, train, ship, or air freight to the user, cool it in grocery stores or home refrigerators, and recover, recycle, or throw away the empty bottles.
The Pacific Institute estimates that the total amount of energy embedded in our use of bottled water can be as high as the equivalent of filling a plastic bottle one quarter full with oil. http://pacinst.org/publication/bottled-water-and-energy-a-fact-sheet/

Once in landfill where a majority of bottles go, it takes up valuable space, is a source of toxic pollution for more than a lifetime and represents more lost resources in a world that has little left to spare. If it does manage to get recycled it can only be downcycled (that is to say that it will never be made into a water bottle again) and will eventually be added to landfill too.

With reusables you still have impacts in manufacture, transport, storage and initial sale too but you get to fill and enjoy almost endlessly. If your reusable does break the majority of it is fully recyclable – over and over again.

So go slowly but do introduce reusables into your lifestyle and we can help you get started.

images-3 images-1 stacker.1-300x225 images-2images

header-coffee


How to BYO your containers video

Some were lucky enough to get this run down in person at the store, however for those of you that didn’t make it or aren’t local this is our guide to BYO your containers to bulk food stores.

* An extra tip that wasn’t in the video: If you are taking home products where the contents isn’t obvious (like flours or similar looking spices) then ALWAYS grab a marker and label the jar straight away.  Helpful for the cashier but more importantly you and your household will know what is in the container at home!

Enjoy the video below and be sure to let us know if this seems doable or any other tips that you’ve tried that make shopping this way a breeze.


Our Guide to Sustainable Food Choices

eco-footprint-image

When did it become so hard to source and eat food without the guilt?

We worry about:

  • creating waste and landfill contributions
  • how far it has had to travel to our plate
  • how many preservatives and additives are in our food
  • allergens
  • animal cruelty and deforestation
  • whether it has been overly processed
  • just how much refined sugars and fats have been added
  • water use in production
  • how long and how it was stored before it was offered as ‘fresh’
  • food safety, especially given the latest berry health scare
  • whether it is nutritious at all any more
  • whether the kids or husband or wife will eat it
  • if it is supporting local farmers
  • if there are GMOs in it
  • if it is organic and if so certified organic
  • what the best deal for your money is
  • whether it was fairly purchased by the middle guy
  • and on and on it goes….

When did sourcing and eating our food suck all the flavour out of life?

A large part of why we are offering you this store is so that these complex and complicated decisions about your next meal can be made just a bit simpler.

Wasteless Pantry is about making it easy to shop and eat responsibly because sustainable is responsible.

We are all about “Progress not Perfection”, a term that we have seen a lot lately.  This means that we are trying our best and always looking to improve what we are doing so one step at a time.  When we open the store we will have sourced the best we can at that point. We will make mistakes, we will experiment and get it wrong, but we will continue to try to get it just a little better next time. And that is all we ask of you too.

So how do we decide what are our best food choices? Below is the Wasteless Pantry Guide to Sustainable Food Choices….

  1. Less packaging is our top priority.

At the Less is More Festival recently; the Eco Faeries sang a very catchy tune that included the line:

“There is no excuse for single use”

Whilst everyone there probably went to bed still singing this one line, it was a simple reminder of the priority we are working toward.

If you think about it, all the effort and resources that went into every single use product or package you buy and then throw away is the equivalent to getting a beautiful handmade quilt from someone dear and using it as a disposable napkin. Only in 10 years time at least the quilt would have composted back into the earth!

  • So this is our first decision making question – how can we minimize the waste?
  1. Local is always better.

Producing, sourcing and eating locally grown food is almost always a more sustainable option than sourcing further afield.

Grown to be eaten sooner, the food can ripen more naturally. It is grown to be transported a shorter distance so it doesn’t need to be as robust, and can be more flavorsome instead.   Local seasonal food is picked at its best and most nutritious so is more likely to be better for you.

And best of all, local food doesn’t need to travel huge distances to get to your plate. You might even get to know who grew it and how. Anyone involved in the frozen berry health scare can attest to how important that is. Brook ‘Sparkles’ Murphy at the Less is More Festival calculated that her green super food smoothie was produced with a massive amount of greenhouse gases due to where and how the ingredients were produced and sourced.

  • So this is our second decision making question – how local can we get this product?
  1. Organic where we can.

The effort that goes into growing the wonderful food we eat makes such an impact on our environment. Organically grown food is more sustainable than conventionally grown goods as there is fewer chemicals put into the environment and these farmers understand the importance of putting nutrients back into the soil.

There are concerns about the chemicals used getting into our bodies too. Of course the quality of the soil greatly impacts on the flavor and nutritional density of the food grown as well.

The thing is though, that a lot of organically grown foods are packaged wastefully to stop them being contaminated by conventional food. Doesn’t this strike you as interesting that the farmer would go to all that effort to care for the earth and avoid the use of chemicals, to then have the food packaged in something made of chemicals that threatens the earth?

  • So our third decision making question is – can we source it as close to organically as possible?

Having made these three decisions of sourcing the least packaged, most local and closest to organic product we can get there is one final question that we raise throughout the entire decision making process:

  • Is the food ethically produced?

Every effort is made to source options produced without animal cruelty such as avoiding uncertified palm oil. We also aim to offer Fair Trade products and those that support a fair price for farmers locally. We are also keen to support Rainforest Alliance initiatives.  Rainforest Alliance has a broad social and ecological mandate that spans many sectors including agriculture. For example, Coffee is one of the agricultural crops targeted by Rainforest Alliance programs. The coffee certification program is aimed at ensuring that coffee workers are paid fairly, treated with respect and that the crop they tend does not contribute to soil erosion, water contamination and forest destruction: the Rainforest Alliance seal means that both social and environmental values are respected.

There are so many other considerations that just haven’t made it onto our radar.

Mostly because once you follow these guiding questions your choice of what to eat next is reduced in such a beautiful way. It is not about which brand being advertised or which fad super food or diet to follow, or even about what that celebrity chef showed you on TV last night. It becomes about cooking seasonal goods that taste great and don’t come with a side of eco-guilt.

It becomes about getting the rubbish out of our kitchens and off our plates.

Like I said at the beginning this is a journey and we are just making one decision better each time.  Minimal waste, local, organic and ethical.
Are you coming with us? Let us know below or on our Facebook page.

Wasteless Ways: Bring Your Own Container

You go to the store or the butcher, pick out your cut of meat or deli item, the assistant packages your goods in a bag or tray, attaches a label, then you buy it at the check out where it is packed in a plastic bag and then you go home.  At home you use the food and then immediately throw away the bag, tray and plastic bag – or use them once and then it all goes to landfill.  Apparently Western Australians are one of the largest producers of waste per person in the world! Not surprising given the scenario above, so what do we do about it?
That’s just how you do it, isn’t it?
10432137_10152185030879150_4906728095971151746_n

The alternative is actually very simple – bring your own containers!

You can bring any clean food grade container you have from home to the store to get your goods.  I have taken tupperware, disposable plastic takeaway containers that I’ve reused until they died, glass or metal containers with good lids and wide mouth jars.  So long as it is clean, it can be used.
The steps:
  1. Take your container to the counter and hand it to the assistant asking for your item to go in the container
  2. The assistant will place your container on the scale and press TARE (this sets the scale to zero so that you only pay for the weight of your food item)
  3. The assistant will then fill your container, weigh your food item and print or note the price
  4. You can ask for the printed label to be attached to your container – they come off easy enough
  5. Then take it to the cashier as normal
When you get home the container of food is stored as normal but at the end you don’t have all the waste. Simple!
By far the scariest part of this is asking the assistant to put your item in the container the first time.  If you go to Swan Valley Market – deli or butcher,  Hills Seafood or JB Butcher (Glen Forrest) they will be happy to help – they have been doing this for Jeannie and I for some time now 🙂  You can blame us if you like – “Jeannie and Amanda of Wasteless Pantry told me to try this“… I’ve had plenty of people comment that it is a great idea to bring your own container, it is much easier to store in the freezer and fridge because it stacks nicely without getting stuck together, and often times I can serve deli items straight from the container which is a little time saver.
Yes you need to plan your trip, but given that that is such an important practice in reducing food wastage you are killing two birds with one stone.

So we challenge you – for just one purchase this week, take your own container and then post a picture on our Facebook page or leave us a comment about whether you would do it again.

amazing that

Wasteless Ways: Produce Bags

The simplest thing I have found to reduce my landfill contribution is to use Produce Bags.

Jeannie and I regularly get curious and positive comments about these bags whenever we do our shopping, and I’m starting to see more and more people getting on board.  These are reusable bags made of mesh or cloth which you take to the store to buy your food items that you might otherwise put in a disposable plastic bag. Everyone seems to love the idea!!

produce bags

I’ve used mine over and over for buying fruit and vegetables, bread rolls, nuts, snack foods and legumes from bulk dispensers like the ones at Wasteless Pantry.

As they are lightweight you don’t need to weigh them first, just pop your goods in and go. If you are using them at a store with a dedicated label machine just stick it on the bag – it is easy enough to remove later.  When you get home you can store your fruit and vegetables in the bag or empty into your usual crisper/containers.  It is easy enough to add them to your washing if they get dirty at all.

As well as being waste free, they are also a lot stronger than the disposable plastic so no more pears tearing their way out of the bag!  They hold a decent amount too – I’ve easily fit 1.5-2kg of fruit in an Onya one.

These bags compact down so much that there would be plenty of room in a handbag to have them with you all the time – then you won’t get caught out trying to remember them.

Onya have a range of bags available for purchase or you can easily make your own – I made mine from baby muslin wraps as it is a lightweight fabric.

What I really love the most about shopping with produce bags is that when I get home all I have bought is food.

I didn’t waste my time grabbing something that will end up in the bin as soon as I get home. My kids are far more excited about helping my fill a Produce Bag than one of those fiddly plastic ones too.

However, if you do get caught out at the store without them or without enough of them, which sometimes happens, then can I suggest you grab a paper mushroom bag or the paper potato bags on offer instead for whatever food you needed?  At least then it is something truly recyclable or compostable. We’ll talk all about the plastic recycling myth down the track….

Let us know if you think the idea is worth trying either on our Facebook page or comments below.