The Plastic Audit

Milk From Horrington Milk Hut, just one off the changes we are making to reduce our plastic usage.

We are a humble coffee and health food shop in a little town in Somerset called Shepton Mallet, people live here, people pass through here and people visit here. The footfall in our little town is low, with Mendip District Council refocusing the centre of town up by the retail park. The retail park is crammed full with well known brand names, whereas the high street still retains a certain innocence, there is still a bakery, some really good places to hang out for coffee and some cool vintage shops. The high street is worth a visit for it's quirkiness and character. It is a very different shopping experience and I would say it is a cheap place to shop, cheap and friendly. We also have a little market on a Friday, with fruit, vegetables, bread, meat and other local traders and we have a much bigger Sunday Market on every 3rd Sunday of the month, this is when the town really comes alive and all those people that were so busy working on the other days of the week are able to come and enjoy spending their money in their local community. It's so special that people even make the effort to visit from further afield.

So, that's a bit of a background to the location of our shop, just an independent shop on a very independent high street, driven by the passions and obsessions of the owners and what has captured my imagination is the challenge to reduce our reliance on plastic and to reduce the amount of it that we send out into the world as post-consumer plastic.

When we first opened 9 years ago, originally in Enfield on a train station platform, one of our main aims was running a sustainable business and we have stuck to that ethos and we hardly produce any waste. Gardners love to take our coffee grounds, we recycle or reuse our cardboard boxes, we make sure that we recycle our bottles, compost our food waste and so on, it takes weeks to produce a bin liner of rubbish but wouldn't it be great if there was no bin liner of rubbish and wouldn't it be great if the world saw everything as resources rather than rubbish?

Reducing Plastic in our Business and Post-Consumer waste

I have been going through the items that we sell and working on reducing our plastic and day by day making little changes. It is a matter of slowly transferring and changing but some things have been cut with no transition. So here is a list of the things we have done so far recently to try to reduce plastic usage in our business, or to reduce the amount of plastic that is released into the world post-consumer.

Washing up liquid is available on tap for you to fill your own bottle with and reuse.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is available on tap for you to refill your own bottle with.

Dr Bronner's Castile Soap Bars are in stock, they have up to 18 different uses from washing your hair to even, if you are brave enough, brushing your teeth.

We don't use plastic straws, we use stainless steel straws in people's smoothies and fruit juices.

Stainless Steel and Bamboo Straws are available to buy.

We sell Bamboo Reusable Coffee Cups, with a 20p discount off your hot drink when you use your own cup.

We recycle any of our paper cups that have been used and left with us and we will be using plant made cups in the future, if people still need take out cups and lids.

We recycle any tetra packs that we use and make sure we pass on information to our customers, where they can recycle theirs after use.

We have stopped buying in products that have the misleading arrow symbol on them that looks like you can recycle the packaging but actually you can't and it just means the company has paid a subsidy.

We have sourced local milk that is supplied in refillable glass bottles and are phasing out our milk in plastic bottles, if this goes well.

We are committed, in future, to buying items in bulk that we usually store on our shelves in small packets and refilling your jars and packets with them instead. We are transitioning at this time. Lentils and buckwheat flour are already available like this.

Herbs and spices are now available for you to fill your own jar for 50p (Unless it is a very expensive herb or spice, then the price will be higher), or you can use one of our jars and it will be 70p. If we haven't got what you want, we will order it in.

We used to buy flapjacks in wrapped in plastic, they are now made by us everyday. They are vegan, gluten free and have no sugar in apart from the dates and bananas used in the very simple recipe.

We have teabags that don't have plastic in BUT they still come presented with a plastic film around the cardboard carton. Yogi Tea have been brilliant and don't have plastic in their teabags or around them.

We sell Toilet Rolls in home compostable film, made with plants.

We have If You Care parchment baking paper, that can be used again and again and can be home composted.

Our take out bags for cakes and toasties are paper bags with a home compostable film window.

Our customers are expected to use their own bags, or use a box from us, if we have one to hand, for their shopping.

We will continue to buy in things to order, if you want them but we will contact the manufacturer to remind them to update or change their packaging, if it is made of plastic, especially non-recyclable plastic.

Future Aims to Reduce Plastic in Our Business and Post Consumer-Waste

We want to buy our coffee in sacks, not in plastic bags but I still want it to be fairly traded and organic.

We want more fresh fruit and vegetables for people to snack on spontaneously, instead of wrapped in plastic snacks. The fruit and vegetables must be sourced from local and independent wholesalers, so that we can make sure that more of your pound stays circulating in the local community.

We want to write to the companies where I think the products are good, it's just a shame about the packaging to ask them to change it.

We have written to St Paul's School to ask if they will be come a collector of old writing materials in our area.

We will take responsibility for the plastic that we still have in the shop and take it off for the customer and recycle it, or if not able to be recycled, send back to the manufacturer of the product with a note to ask them to change their packaging.

We will continue to reduce the amount of things we buy which use plastic, especially once use plastic.

We will continue to research the best way that old plastic can be used and look at the details of what we are doing through internet resources and information.

We will continue to be transparent in this subject and to share with our customers what we are doing and the blocks we are experiencing in making changes.

We will stop buying hand towels wrapped in plastic and will either use kitchen rolls in compostable film if we can find some,  or we will use old but clean rags for spillages and cleaning.

Instead of plastic sponges we will source loofah sponges for cleaning, from our supplier and we will also stock them in the shop.

We are looking to find a wholesaler for tiffin boxes, so that you can use them for take out food, not only from us but from other local outlets.

Turning Back the Plastic Tide

It is hard and it is challenging, to make these changes. When I look around me at the world we live in and I see the amount of plastic we are surrounded by in our everyday lives, I feel very sad and upset and I really don't know how we can make a difference, when even as I write this, there is a factory somewhere, churning out plastic things. I think the people that have seen the light and know that this just can't go on feel very passionately about this and we do have to do what we can as each individual do, to reverse the plastic tide! So, whether you take one step, or several steps, it is worth doing. We have to do it, this is the only way we can communicate to the decision makers, to the manufacturers, to the factory owners. Our little actions together, will make big changes. Sometimes it can feel hopeless and it can feel futile and it can feel very overwhelming, especially as a business owner to try to make those changes but in it's turn, it can also feel empowering.

I have been inspired by other people in my community to make bigger changes and more focused changes, so hopefully, we can keep inspiring each other and sharing ideas and good practices. I am not saying it is easy, it isn't and it can feel very challenging in a mental health kind of way, like an I'm turning into a crazy woman type of way and the worst thing is the guilt but we just have to keep thinking positively and thinking about what we can do and what we have done to make things better and that is why I have done a plastic audit in my business and my home.

Please let me know about the changes you have made and the solutions you have found to the plastic problem.

Thanks for reading. xx