01 02 03 Amanda in Waste-Free Land: Rants and Raves from the past week 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Rants and Raves from the past week

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This last week has seen me produce very minimal waste as I am now fully into the swing & habits of Plastic Free July.

Rave: I picked up some sushi the other day from Sushi Time in Onehunga and the man offered me a discount for using my own container and refusing the single plastic wrapped condiments!

Rave & Rant: On Saturday the BF & I went to Otara Markets. There was heaps of fruit and veges, majority of it was plastic free- however all the stores had copious amounts plastic bags- which were greedily being used to pack & carry produce. I finally found fresh spinach and kale which was not pre-wrapped in plastic, I packed in to my mesh bag instead. The other half of the market was cheap toys and knock off products unfortunately.

I always go to the night market prepared. 
Rant: My flatmate and I have been discussing the waste produced at the Onehunga Night Market, as well the other markets, and we are wondering how best to change this. While we bring our own containers there are still hundreds of other people there using plastic packaging and then throwing it away (to landfill) only 5 minutes later. How bizarre is it that an item we use only once, for only a few minutes is made out of a material that lasts forever? Every single piece of plastic (minus the small amount that has been incinerated) is still in existence- not being used now and trashing our planet? It makes no sense to me! I am hoping to try and encourage some changes at our local night market, which has several rubbish bins and workers who constantly empty them, and yet not even one recycling bin.

Rave: We also checked out the new Bin Inn in Takanini while we were out South- and it was great! The Takanini store is smaller than Howick, but they offered the same bulk bin options. The shop was very tidy and the customer service was fantastic. We used old coffee jars which were weighed in-store, cloth bags that we have made and old ziplock plastic bags which we already had. We were also very happy to buy 600gms of peanut butter for $5 using the peanut butter machine.
Only a few more days of Plastic Free July left, but I will definitely be keeping up my plastic free & waste free habits!

Some of our Bin Inn purchases. 
It's the final leg of Plastic Free July, but I am definitely planning to keep up my habits. My grocery shopping has changed significantly but I much prefer shopping in this way, I am always finding new places to explore and have changed what I cook and eat. 

Disclaimer: I am not endorsed by any of the mentioned shops & outlets, I am expressing my own personal experiences and recommendations. 


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