Rubbish-free year: Week 27

5:00AM Monday August 11, 2008

Last week was the halfway mark in our rubbish-free year.

I just popped into the pharmacy to pick something up for a family member and was struck by how I wouldn’t be able to buy almost anything in the whole shop.

And then I was struck by how weird it is that living rubbish-free has become normal for us.

Of course it’s not normal at all, odd that it feels that way. Odd that I just don’t need to buy - nor have any desire to buy - things contained in plastic, or things that are themselves disposable or junky.

We were aware getting sick would be a major source of rubbish creation so we have tried to keep ourselves fit - eating healthily, keeping warm and non-stressed, believing we’d be unlucky to get ill if we looked after ourselves that carefully.

And so far we haven’t been sick - apart from a cold, which was easily dealt with using garlic, lemon and honey, lots of kiwifruit, oranges and plenty of rest.

When Jess got sick last week though, we didn’t muck around trying to find rubbish-free alternatives. I am sure it would have been quite easy actually, but somehow it was different with her. I guess we didn’t know anything about how to deal with doggy stuff alternatively, and the track to the vet was well worn.

I guess the event of the week, if anyone could call it that, was the purchase of a rubbish-free padlock. We had a combo one securing our garage and it stopped working, we suspect someone tried to break in.

So the next day I raced down to The Warehouse only to find their range cocooned in plastic display cases hanging neatly off hooks.

This is pretty normal and we are used to trying multiple places before getting what we need, so next I headed to Smith City, found the same thing and then unsuccessfully tried a little locksmith stand in a mall.

Then I put an ad on Freecycle (the web-based free swap) but before I had a reply I happened to see a locksmith store and he had what I wanted: a padlock in a cardboard box.

It wasn’t on display, he had to go out the back and dig for it for about two minutes! What a lot of effort.

Most people who hear what a palaver we go through ask why we don’t just dump the unwanted packaging with the retailer. I think if we did it would still give a message, (that would hopefully get back to the manufacturers) but it would be a very different challenge. We could buy almost anything we wanted and not go to any effort to source alternatives; but we hope by choosing to be rubbish-free at the point of sale, and by documenting it in our Rubbish-Free Guide, we have forged a path for others to also be rubbish-free.

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