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Enjoy some tips on how to adopt a plastic-free lifestyle, and eliminate needless waste from your life.
See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos
Enjoy some tips on how to adopt a plastic-free lifestyle, and eliminate needless waste from your life.
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00:00Today I'm going to show you small steps to actually reduce your plastic consumption and
00:12become plastic free.
00:13The first thing I'm going to buy today is actually my fruits and vegetables.
00:17Usually I choose materials that I can wash.
00:20When they wait, the fruits and the vegetables, I will get the sticker and put it on my shopping
00:25list so at the end I can go to the cashier and they can scan each one of them.
00:29Here we have the typical example of the situation where we get the fruit unpackaged and the
00:36fruit packaged.
00:38So between the two, this is really some plastic that's not needed.
00:42Bananas are strong enough, thick skin, just need to apply the sticker on it and bring
00:48it to you to the counter.
00:49When I do buy my bread, I take with me wax paper bags.
00:54If I'm going to buy a bigger piece of bread, I bring with me some bigger paper bags or
01:04any cotton bag will do.
01:06Something as simple as butter, the best thing to purchase is the one that is just wrapped
01:13in paper.
01:17So this is the typical styrofoam board where we have our fruits, our vegetables, the meat,
01:23the cold cuts.
01:24The only problem with this board is that it's not recyclable.
01:26This is a material that cannot be recycled and somehow every time we go home we are shopping,
01:31we might have at least 10 or 20 in our cart and this is a big problem and causes a lot
01:37of waste that goes to landfill.
01:39Something we eat a lot at home is yogurt and this has been quite difficult at the beginning
01:44to try to reduce the amount of plastic.
01:46There are two ways so far.
01:48One is to buy the bigger pot.
01:51Instead of buying maybe five of these and five containers, another possibility is to
01:57actually go for a glass pot.
02:00In the UAE we have over a thousand different brands of drinking water.
02:05I would suggest when it comes to water to go for a mineral water.
02:09If it says pure drinking water, then it is just tap water and you can drink your own
02:15filtered tap water at home and reduce tremendously packaging.
02:19Many times we need to actually buy single use items and definitely some of them are
02:25plates, glasses, cutlery.
02:28You have here a seal, a green track and along the shelves you will find always the greener
02:34option so as you can see here we have the plastic ones but if you come a bit below,
02:41you will find again the seal that shows you the paper option.
02:44The same thing is valid for the cutlery.
02:49So the nice thing about these is that they are made out of bamboo and wood.
02:54We do need a lot of Tupperwares in our house.
02:58The best option in this case would be to choose a glass Tupperware.
03:01You can put them in the oven, you can put them in a microwave.
03:03They are not going to leak any chemicals into your food.
03:07We tend to go for liquid soaps but liquid soaps are a fashion because definitely the
03:13best option would be to go with the old powder.
03:16It comes into a carton box.
03:18Carton is one thing that in the UAE is widely recycled.
03:22The amount of nappies that we use during the first years of life of our children is incredible.
03:28We don't realize it and the problem with nappies is that they are really not degradable.
03:33One brand widely available in the UAE in the different supermarkets is Natty and Natty
03:39is made of breathable materials, non-plastic.
03:43It's made out of corn starch.
03:45They degrade very quickly.
03:46Another item that I was very happy to discover recently in different supermarkets is a new
03:52brand that offers feminine pads and sanitary pads all made out of organic cotton and there
03:59is no plastic packaging inside.
04:05In case you forget your bags because it happens also to me, I always carry in my own purse
04:12different small bags.
04:13So what I recommend is to start small and take it step by step.
04:19It shouldn't be overwhelming.
04:21The first thing to do is to take with you a reusable bag.
04:24You put them in your cars, put a few in your bag and that will be the first step in order
04:28for you to reduce your plastic consumption.
04:31Later you can start looking for specific items that come in a non-plastic packaging and later
04:37on you will actually bring your own reusable items.
04:41The first steps are definitely to try to not drink from plastic bottled water, not use
04:46straws.
04:47As I said, no plastic bags.
04:49Try to buy as many glass jars so you can reuse them and this is how slowly you will become
04:55plastic free.