How to avoid soft plastics when food shopping

What are soft plastics?

Basically, any plastic packaging you can ‘scrunch’ is classed as a soft plastic – this includes plastic produce bags, bags holding potato chips, pasta, and yoghurt pouches (among many others).

Whilst recycling these items when you’ve finished with them is great, avoiding them in the first place is even better for the environment, and it doesn’t take that much effort to do. Here are some tips for your next shopping trip.

Fruit and veg

Avoid the plastic bags you tear off the roll in the fruit and veg section. How to buy fruit and veg without using plastic bags.

Also remember to use nature’s packaging! For example, bananas have built in ‘wrapping’ and so do:  

• Melons
• Oranges
• Lettuce (protective outer leaves)
• Potatoes
• The list is endless!  

Don’t buy bagged salads – for starters – you’re paying far more than you need to and it’s just extra plastic going into landfill. (And don’t get us started on packaged, chopped onions!) How much are you paying for food convenience?  

Snacks  

Snack foods must be one of the biggest offenders when it comes to over packaging. Avoid food in pre-portioned packaging, such as the large plastic bags of chips containing smaller plastic packs of chips. Buy standard bags of chips instead and split them into individual portions at home in reusable containers.  

Other products you can use this method for include:

• Sweet biscuits
• Cheese & savoury biscuits
• Cheese sticks

Hot drinks

Avoid the plastic, single hot drink sachets housed inside a cardboard box, such as coffee and hot chocolate; opt for a tin or jar instead – you’ll get more for your money, and you won’t have to go hunting for a pair of scissors when the ‘tear here’ doesn’t work on your hot chocolate sachet!

Dairy

• Walk past the bags of shredded/grated cheese. They may be a bit of a time saver, but if you set aside 10 minutes or so, you could grate a whole block into a container to keep in the fridge - and it will cost less into the bargain.
• Instead of buying individual pots of yoghurt or tubes or squeezy pouches – go for the large tub and decant into smaller, reusable containers to pack into lunchboxes.

Pasta

Opt for pasta that comes in a cardboard box, rather than plastic.  

What about waste?

• If you’re concerned about food waste by buying a whole lettuce as opposed to a smaller bag of lettuce – meal planning can be your best friend. This way you can plan to use everything you buy and will be saving money in the process. Your freezer can also be your best friend when it comes to leftovers.  
• How to store veg to make it last longer  
• How to store fruit and save
• You can also swap plastic cling wrap for beeswax wraps or reusable containers.  

We get it, it can be tricky getting out of the habit and convenience of using plastics when it comes to food shopping – so start small. Pick one type of food to cut down on (such as chips) and see how you go. Then add in other things and before you know it, your shopping list could be free from soft plastics!  

Simple shopping choices to reduce your use of plastic  

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