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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
Combining the best of all worlds. Plastic free shopping and cheese. Yes I visited the marvellous The Courtyard Dairy were they make and sell artisan cheeses from the UK and Europe. As well as the shop, there a cheese production room, a small museum with a display few cheesy artefacts and a café serving cheese-based cuisine.
But back to the shop. OMG!!! The cheeses are stacked in a glorious cornucopia of cheese wheels mostly unpackaged and free range.
Yes they are a bit pricey but it is cheese to die for. Take your own bags to be sure, and you can bring back some luxury cheese that is also plastic free.
but don’t take my word! it is winner of numerous awards including the ‘Cheesemonger of The Year’ (at the Farm Shop and Deli Awards 2016 and separately at the World Cheese Awards 2013); The Best New Cheese Retailer (2013 British Cheese Awards), Best Cheese Counter (World Cheese Awards 2013) and was also a runner up for Yorkshire Food Destination of the Year (2013) BBC Food & Farming Awards (2014) and Observer Food Monthly Awards (2015).
This is top quality cheese.
Its located just outside Settle on the A65 heading towards Kendal, in what was the former Falconry Centre (LA2 8AS).
BYOB
Bring your own bags?
If you want to shop plastic-free you often need to take your own packaging. While seems bothersome, it means no hormone inhibitors and toxic chemicals leaching from plastic packaging into your food, and less plastic pollution. Here are the win win alternatives.
Latest Loose Food Shop
There are a growing number of plasticfree/refill shops in the U.K. Here are the latest finds.
Latest Loose Food Shop
There’s the ‘green scoop’ in Camarthen
http://www.thegreenscoop.com
9 Hall Street, Carmarthen, SA31 1PH
Loose Food List
I have been updating my list of towns with refill shops and adding new shops to the ever-growing lists. have a look and see if there is one near you. Places can be found here. Plus how to get your shop added to the list.
Image by Edward Lich from Pixabay
The Curse Of The Single Cup Brew
“Peter Sylvan and John Dragone in the early 1990s started building prototypes of a coffee maker that would brew one cup at a time, using a throwaway package that would hold the grounds and the filter. The result was the Keurig single-cup brewing system, which uses disposable plastic K-Cups that look like supersize creamer containers.”
“When the company began selling its single-serve coffee systems to offices, the price was too high to envision a similar product living on kitchen countertops: $795. But by 2004, the company had created a consumer version that sold for $149. (Keurig’s least expensive machine, the B30 Mini, currently sells for $89.)” Read more
By 2017….
coffee pods made up a nearly 5 billion dollar industry.
at least 16 million U.S. households currently have a single-serve brewer on their countertop.
coffee pods, or K-cups, that go in them… and make up a third of all coffee sold.
if you took the coffee pods that the coffee giant Nespresso produced over the years (nearly 30 billion of them), you could circle the globe over two dozen times!
That’s a lot of pods, a lot of plastic, and a lot of aluminium.
Sources for the above facts and a very good article can be found here.
So what to do if you have one of these machines?
You could try compostable pods. Such as these from Novelle Coffee
“Our dedication to provide premium coffee is matched only by our commitment to the environment, which is why our coffee is now available in compostable Nespresso compatible capsules.
Available in Intenso and Decaffeinato, it’s the same great ethically-sourced Novell coffee with added peace of mind.
Our capsules are made from 100% compostable materials that decompose over 12 weeks, meaning you can look after the planet as well as your conscience.” Read more
Reportedly the North American brands Purpods and G-Pak have also been certified 100% compostable.
Halo do something similar.
I dont have a coffee making machine so cannot compare taste… but Which have done a survey that you can access here.
Compostable Plastics
What is compostable? To be classed compostable, items must biodegrade within a certain time (around the rate at which paper biodegrades), and the resulting biomass must be free of toxins, able to sustain plant life and be used as an organic fertilizer or soil additive. For a man-made product to be sold as compostable, it has to meet certain standards.
One such is the European Norm EN13432. You can find out more here.
Composting Plastic At Home
While most agree that some plastics are indeed compostable, many say that it can only composted in large scale municipal schemes. As we don’t have many large scale municipal schemes this they say is a pointless advantage. I say the days of large scale municipal schemes is fast approaching as governments aim to divert biodegradable rubbish from landfill sites.
But more to the point, I have been composting my compostable plastic at home for years now, including Biobags, deli pots and disposable cutlery. Read more about that HERE.
It does take longer than other products and sometimes I have found shreds of it in my compost but I dig it into the soil where it quickly disappears.
Read more about compostable plastics here
Greenwashing
And never forget that bio-degradable plastic bags do not biodegrade where as compostable plastic bags do compost. Not all bio-plastics (plant derived plastics) are compostable. Read more here.
Compost Bins
How Do I Compost?
I have a Green Joanna compost bin and I compost up in the North of England.
More Drink
Hot Drinks Plastic Free
Tea, coffee, cocoa and drinking chocolate all bought #plasticfree and made with milk from a returnable glass bottle. Details here
Water
To make coffee you need water. yes. we’ve updated the water index
N.B.
Lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x
And before you go…
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