How My Weekly Shop Has Changed

Over the past years, the way I shop, and my weekly shop, has changed drastically thanks to a much more eco conscious mindset! Here are a few ways that my habits have changed…

• Milk, Juice, & Bread

Thanks to The Modern Milkman now delivering in my area, I have been able to have my milk, juice, and bread delivered directly to my doorstep. Admittedly, it comes at quite a premium, but at the moment, I can just about afford to fork out an extra few quid every week for the service, and am happy to do so. Rather than buying plastic cartons of milk and juice as part of my big shop, it’s delivered in glass bottles that I leave outside my door to be recycled when I’m done with them – exactly the same as how things used to work in ‘the olden days’! The Modern Milkman seem to be a very earth conscious company, as they like to tell me how many plastic bottles I have saved, and their packaging is all compostable or recyclable! 

• Laundry Detergent

This one isn’t necessarily as good as it might seem at first glance, but my laundry detergent and fabric softener is delivered through my door via postal subscription from Smol. Smol took off a few years ago and have a reputation for being a fairly eco friendly brand, but I would love to do some more digging into them after hearing some interesting points from other green living enthusiasts. All packaging is cardboard, or entirely recyclable, but I have heard questionable things about the company’s carbon footprint. Still, I suspect buying from a company like Smol is still better than buying a supermarket brand in a plastic bottle!

• Loo Roll

Much like my laundry detergent, my loo roll situation could probably use a bit of investigation, but I currently get a couple of big boxes from Who Gives A Crap every year. This loo roll comes wrapped in paper rather than plastic and again, has a good reputation for being eco-friendly. Despite this, the company has come under some scrutiny for having its products produced in China, meaning their carbon footprint isn’t small, and leaving room for working conditions to be unclear. Again, it’s probably a much better option than supermarket alternatives, but certainly not a perfect solution. 

• Chocolate & Coffee

If you’ve been here for a while then you’ll probably be aware of my stance on chocolate and coffee. I’ve been avoiding supermarket chocolate for years now due to poor ethics found in most mainstream chocolate companies, and have started being much more careful where I buy my coffee from too for similar reasons. At the moment, I am loving Tony’s and Cocoa Loco for chocolate, and Lost Sheep Coffee for my coffee pods!

• Household Cleaning Products

I didn’t realise quite how bad supermarket cleaning products are until last year. Most of the time, they are made of mostly water which is transported around the country totally unnecessarily, creating a much bigger carbon footprint than needed. It’s often full of nasty chemicals too, and some of the ‘green’ alternatives on supermarket shelves are owned by companies that have atrocious ethics. With all this in mind, I have tried a few different things and like them all. 

I have some Skosh cleaning sprays that I bought from Babipur – you can just buy the cleaning product tablet to mix with water yourself, and it’s really easy to do! Along the same lines, I recently got a selection of Evie Blue cleaning products in a box from a company local to me called Between Green. The Evie Blue cleaning products come in little sachets to be mixed with water, much like the tabs from Skosh. 

Washing up liquid is another thing that I’ve been trying to make better choices with. I used EcoLiving solid washing up blocks for a while, and they work well, but I get frustrated when they get really small. Now, I get Miniml washing up liquid delivered from the milkman – it comes in a glass bottle and I can just leave it out to be collected and reused when it’s empty!

• Dried Food

I don’t do this nearly as much as I should, but my local refill shop sells all the pasta, rice, and grains I could ever need. I go down every now and again but will make it my mission to use the shop more as it’s a wonderful way of getting everything I need without any single use plastic! 

• Fruit & Veg

This is an area in need of improvement for me! At the moment, fruit and veg all comes from Tesco as part of the weekly ‘big shop’, but we do actually have a good market nearby. Something else I would really like to look into is getting fruit and veg boxes delivered – I’ve gone down this road before but had little success as there were lots of things that my fussy family didn’t want to eat! If anyone knows of any fruit and veg boxes where I can pick what is inside, please do let me know!