Trying not to use plastic

Miss Naomi here:
Well, I've been environmentally conscious for several years now, but this December while I was trying to clean up my work office I noticed that I had quite a few plastic bags to throw out. It bothered me that I used so much plastic. I was tempted to save the bags. I am a saver. It is just so hard for me to throw out anything that is still usable. But I knew if I kept them they probably wouldn't get used and would just add to my mess.

That's the long way of saying that I was considering to make my new year's resolution not to use plastic bags. (The ones in my office were sandwich bags, which indicated that I was being environmentally aware on some level because I must have packed my own lunch. Bring you own lunch saves of the environment and is usually more healthy for you, but that is a whole new blog post.) 

So here it is the middle of January and I've felt like I hadn't implemented my no plastic bag use policy.

Today,  went to a mainstream grocery store. I thought about bringing my own bag...lord knows I have enough of them, but I couldn't find any clothe bags, except for ones that had a competitors logo on it. I didn't want to be tacky and bring a competitor's logo into a store.

Anyway, I had a list of items I needed to get. Some were for my husband. First all he wanted cherry juice, because whatever is in cherries relieves his condition. But it can't be just any cherry juice, it has to be real cherry juice. We've learned that the hard way. Many brand try to pass their product off as "real" cherry juice. The brand we have to by is Indian Summer.
As I searched in the juice aisle I notice that ever single bottle of juice was plastic.
Next I wanted to get some potatoes. I only wanted  a few small ones and they were in the bulk section. There were plastic bags for the customers to take to carry them. I knew I could put some in my cart without a bag...but I want to contain them somehow. I noticed that some onions and other produce were packaged in paper sacks. I walked around the produce section looking for empty paper sacks but could not find any. Finally I found a clerk and told him that I wanted to get some bulk potatoes and I didn't want to use the plastic bags and did he have a paper sack I could use. He went to get me one. He went behind a door for employees and came back with one little bag sack for me. Had he come back with a  couple paper sacks I would have put some of the bulk chocolate covered nuts in the second bag. I didn't feel like asking him to trudge back and get another paper bag and I knew I didn't really need the chocolate cover nuts, so the store just lost an impulse purchase sale from me.  I wonder why they don't have more paper sacks available? Do they cost more money or make mess on the retail floor?  

Next up was for me to get my husband some milk. I found it, but I think the carton has a lining of plastic. (That's also another blog post.) I do know that it had a plastic spout. I'm not sure why cartons now have this.

Milk cartoons now have this plastic spout.

I decided that I would like some quick cooking rice. Everything was in a plastic bag-type container. The only thing I could find in a cardboard box was macaroni and cheese. Since I eat vegan mac and cheese was not an option. I try to eat organic and now most of the food, even if it is organic is package in a plastic bag.

This rice is in a plastic container.

Some frozen orange juice is in a cardboard container, but most is in a plastic container.

My husband also wanted some orange juice so off to the frozen aisle I went. Lots of the frozen juices there were in little cylinder plastic containers, but I opted for the juice in the cardboard cylinder with the metal ends.  

If you want to use less plastic it seems like a person will need to do a lot of cooking from scratch. My lifestyle is so busy that I really have time.