Diary post - Supermarket shopping
It’s pretty well known and talked about that supermarkets haven’t had the best track record with plastic usage/wastage and whilst they have all been making an evident effort, I thought I would have a look through one of my slightly smaller shops (as a student) to see how much of the plastic is recyclable. A couple of years ago (in first year) I started buying loose fruit and veggies, as much as a could anyway, both to reduce the amount I was carrying but also the amount of space it took up in the fridge and I have continued to do so still so that automatically reduces the amount of plastic there will be within this shop but even still, for a small shop there’s a lot!
It can be quite difficult and time consuming to work out what is actually recyclable and what isn’t and what is at home and what you have to take back to the store for them to recycle it. In general I always forget to take my plastic back with me the next time I shop and I’m sure I’m not the only one which isn’t a major problem but I fear any people will just throw it away to reduce clutter, which is when it would become a problem. I generally buy cheaper products at the moment, being a student and all so I’m not sure if the more expensive items might be more recyclable then these items but it really shouldn’t make a difference, plastic is plastic.
In terms of prices, it’s interesting to look at how it’s cheaper to shop - you would think that it would be cheaper to buy loose fruit & veg rather than in a load of plastic, would you?.. Surprisingly enough, that isn’t always the case.
So, in terms of price difference it’s all very hit and miss with what’s cheaper in plastic and what’s not but overall there is very little incentive so spend more time selecting and bagging 10 potatoes than just picking up a bag of potatoes… the only benefit really is having more flexibility with how much you buy (reducing food waste) and what exactly you buy - a pack of peppers could be three different colours but actually you only want two yellow pepper. There is an annoyingly small difference between it all but the odd thing is that obviously someone has to pay for the plastic, nothing in life is free so are the shops paying for it themselves to encourage spending through convenience or is it a matter of making their products across the board a few pence more than they might cost without the over use of packaging, to get that money back without making it obvious? It doesn’t necessarily have a direct link to my project but it would be interesting to know, none the less. On the note of price difference, eco shops (package free) are becoming bigger and bigger and more relevant than ever because they really do reduce a lot of plastic usage - I get pasta, rice, oats, desiccated coconut, herbs & spices and a variety of snacks, depending where I go. I used to go through maybe 3-4 packs of pasta every 5-6 weeks so roughly speaking, I will have saved say 50 packs of pasta worth of plastic over the past two years or so. That may not seem like a lot but that is just on one food type and as a singular individual, if everyone did this alone think about how much plastic could be saved! It does however, come at a price…
If I were to buy 500g of Tesco own pasta (they don’t do their own version using an eco friendly packaging - ughhhghg) it would cost 95p however, I bought 600g and spent £1.62 which is pretty close to double the amount spent - a kg of pasta from Tesco costs just 3p extra to purchase… that doesn’t help, especially in a day and age of living crisis. This is just the surface, there is a lot on the internet about all of this:
This article basically supports everything that I said above, about convenience and inconsistency in price and limited options. It genuinely is a problem, especially with the figure of almost half of the plastic produced in UK each year is for packaging! That is scary, especially as seen as it so unnecessary!!! It would be a bittttt better if more of it was recyclable but first step is always to reduce, then reuse and lastly recycle, which requires more energy to turn it into something else. I have a feeling this may become a very important element of my project as it seems to really be having an impact but it’s something I will need to look further into.
A very good point is made here, as a society of individuals there is very little we can do about plastic usage, if the government and these massive multi-million pound companies don’t do their part - we have no realistic choice other then to buy what they sell. Of course we should all do what we can (take our plastics back to the supermarkets for them to do with it whatever it is that they actually do) to make a conscious effort to reduce plastic waste but it isn’t always quite as simple as that - what about those that get food deliveries because they are unable to physically go to the store?.. does the delivery driver collect the used packaging from them?.. It’s all questions that should be asked and any question asked should be answered with honesty! Money won’t make the world go round if it’s filled to the brim with plastic!!!
https://www.clientearth.org/latest/latest-updates/stories/plastic-waste-how-are-supermarkets-faring/
Some seriously worrying statistics..
I really like the visuals here, mixing the text with the imagery, creating like a poster. I really want to experiment with colour further, looking at changing the way we view an image and manipulating the message read in this manner.
I think I’ve got some interesting things to look at here but I think I could take it even further through research into how the plastic from an average should could be used.
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