As we stood in the checkout queue at the fruit shop yesterday, I had a happy realisation. Every single person in line had brought their own bags.
Harris Farm Markets stopped supplying plastic shopping bags on 1 January 2018 – they still have small thin ones on offer for individual items, but even those were being used sparingly. The young man in front of us was piling unbagged fruit and veg on to the counter for weighing, and the well-trained cashier was placing them carefully into his backpack after ringing up. As always, it’s a joy to live in Sydney’s Inner West, where the community is happy to embrace initiatives like this without so much as a murmur.
I always travel with a couple of furoshiki in my handbag these days…
As I’ve mentioned previously, Harris Farm offers a range of imperfect fruit and vegetables – a boon to both the farmer and the purchaser. I was so impressed with the green mesh bags provided for these items that I wanted to make my own. It was a great use for the roll of mosquito netting that has been sitting in my sewing room for twenty years, and the bag of lanyards I picked up at Reverse Garbage six months ago. Not being a minimalist occasionally pays off…
The prototype worked so well that I came home and whipped up a dozen more. The fabric doesn’t fray, so it was a doddle to adapt the glasses case pattern from my Useful Bag post…
We picked up a mesh bag full of imperfect apricots for $3.99/kg (as opposed to $12.99/kg for the perfect ones) so that Pete could make our favourite jam. Of course, first we had to make pectin from Granny Smith apples (lucky they had seconds of those too). It’s been a very long time since we’ve had any of our own homemade jam, so this was a real treat…
My friends in the UK tell me that shops are now required to charge for plastic bags over there, which has greatly reduced their use. We still use more at home than we’re happy with, although we make a concerted effort to wash and recycle them wherever possible. How are you going with reducing your plastic usage?
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 