Lunch boxes: a daily essential, and a daily trial. Not just the assembling of, but the what to put in them, what’s in the fridge, do we have any bread, actually where is your lunch box? routine. And, then there’s the packaging. Off the shelf supermarket lunch-box snacks are often laden with soft plastics making our kids lunch boxes major contributors to single use plastic waste. 

There are some great initiatives to slash the single use output of kids lunch boxes, like our local schools nude food days. That’s where everything in their lunch box has to be package free, with classes receiving points and kudos for a full house of  package free lunchboxes. 

To create a single use plastic package free lunch box habit though takes planning. Yep, we know, something else to add to the list. But, this @plasticfreejuly we’re committed and inspired to make the change!

To spur on our enthusiasm we’re trying simple recipes - like this healthy and easy option from Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar, Kids Cookbook (bluebird books for life, @booksbybluebird). And, trying to get the kids on board with the buying and making  to help bolster their sense of environmental responsibility.

Buying the ingredients from a bulk food store cuts the single use plastic packaging back at source too. For this recipe we bought what we could from our local @scoopwholefoods. Also a great place to get the littlies weighing and measuring as an added bonus.

Outside of the baking, we’re trying other food prep hacks to bring down the packaging - like buying fruit from our local food market @bondifarmersmarket and, when we can’t avoid a pre-packaged product like chips, buying  large bags and dropping a few into single serve reusable containers each day. Thanks for the yogurt tip too @green.and.simple - buy large pots of yogurt, add a few spoons to reusable containers with a little honey each day for another lunch box treat.

We’d love to hear your plastic free lunch box ideas. Any favourite tricks or recipes? 

Good luck with the muffins. Let us know how you get on.

Abi and Claire

xx

Fluffy Raspberry Muffins

From I Quit Sugar, Kids Cookbook with Sarah Wilson 

Makes 12

Prep time 10 minutes

Cooking time 30 minutes

2 cups (250g) gluten-free flour, sifted

2 ½  teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (250g) unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk to make recipe nut free)

125g butter, melted

2 eggs, whisked

⅓ cup (75ml) rice malt syrup

1½ cups (180g) frozen or fresh raspberries 

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (gas 4). Line a muffin or cupcake tray with 12 paper cases.
2. Combine the sifted flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Pour in the milk, butter, eggs, and rice malt syrup.Mix until a batter forms, Gently stir through the raspberries.
3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared paper cases, and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are well risen and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the centre.
4. Remove from the tray and allow to cool on a wire rack before serving.

For more information visit

plasticfreejuly.org

www.bluebirdbooksforlife.com

www.scoopwholefoods.com.au

http://bondimarkets.com.au/farmers/

https://greenandsimple.co/

To shop our range of recycled foldable totes visit https://theother-bag.com/

Excited, daunted, overwhelmed, happy to learn, willing to give it a go? Going single-use plastic free for a whole month is like a disposable detox or a plastic purge. Like all detoxes, it’s not going to be easy. It could get emotional (just imagine missing your morning coffee to save on single-use plastic because you've forgotten your keep cup! Ugly, right?) But, ultimately we know, that if we all accept the plastic free July challenge we'll come out cleaner, lighter and having made realistic and achievable changes that can last beyond July.

What’s it all about?

The Plastic Free July campaign started in 2011 out of Western Australia to raise awareness of plastic pollution and get people thinking about the scale of their single-use plastic use. Now a global movement, it challenges everyone to decrease their single-use plastic use by making a commitment that suits their lifestyle. That could be to live without single-use plastic for a day, a week or the whole month. 

Where to start?

Register at https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/take-the-challenge/ and evaluate what’s achievable for you.

For us our single-use plastic free journey started a while back. We’ve made some easy swaps that mean a recycled foldable tote, keep cup and water bottle are part of our daily arsenal of reusables. But, for this month, we’re making more changes to that to see if we can bring different habits into the rotation of our plastic light existence. That said, we’re approaching the month with a healthy dose of realism. For us, that means that as part of two busy families with five children between us, we’re going to be doing what we can, where we can to be single-use plastic free and to generally live more plastic light. 

Rewind. How did you get started?

By breaking it down into three categories: kitchen, bathroom,  and out-and-about. Honing in on an area has, so far, made it easier to see where we can make changes to our single-use plastic consumption, to become plastic lighter and to hone our reusing habits. 

Easy kitchen switches we've made: 

• Avoiding plastic wrapped fruit and vegetables
• Recycling soft plastics (from bread bags or chip packets)
• Swapping pre-made lunch-box snacks for home-made
• Using beeswax food wraps
• Swapping zip lock bags for Stasher silicone reusable bags for snack storage 
• Transporting snacks and lunches in metal lunch and snack boxes - our favourite? Planetbox
• Using spray and wipe kitchen cleaners and bamboo cleaning cloths instead of cleaning wipes. We love Koala Eco
• Swapping from scourers to wooden scrubbing brushes.

Bathroom: 

• Swapping shampoo for shampoo bars. We’re loving Ethique
• Switching to bamboo toothbrushes
• Using soap instead of hand wash 
• Swapping to Oh Crap toilet rolls and tissues.

Out-and-about: 

• Creating reusing habits by never leaving home without a recycled foldable tote bag, reusable water bottle and keep-cup. 
• Taking lunches and snacks in reusable containers.

Where can we improve?

There’s so much more we can, and will, be trying to do. Like avoiding pre packed meat and fish. Buying fresh bread rather than plastic wrapped sliced. Buying milk in glass bottles rather than plastic. And, finding an alternative to chips and chip packets for kids lunch boxes. Any ideas?

The Plastic Free July website is full of suggestions we’ll be working our way through in the coming days. 

It’s unrealistic of us to say that we’re  heading towards being zero waste and living single-use plastic free, yet. We’re far from it. With the demands of feeding, clothing and entertaining our families we’re on the receiving end of daily doses of packaging, soft plastics and waste that we don’t want, and that makes our heart sink. Many day-to-day buys haven’t quite caught up with our desires for less single-use waste. But we are trying! 

As a conscious consumers we’ve made positive changes where possible. Concentrating on reusing where possible and developing habits that we hope are making a difference leading to less single-use plastic, creating less waste and more reusing. Good luck for Plastic Free July. Successful reusing starts here. And let us know how you get on.

For more information visit…

https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/

https://www.stasherbag.com

https://www.planetbox.com/

https://koala.eco/

https://www.ohcrap.com.au/

https://ethiquebeauty.com/

To shop our range visit 

https://theother-bag.com/collections/all