Days 56 and 57 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: buying local honey, avoiding plastic.
One of the things I have been doing in recent years is buying my food from local suppliers where possible.
It means that the food that comes into my home comes with a lot less climate damage and pollution than most of the food in our shops.
Buying food with low ‘food miles’ is also a great way of supporting our local producers and, in turn, strengthening our local communities. Who wouldn’t want to do that if they can?
I avoid packaging where possible but, for some things, it is unavoidable.
Honey is one of those things.
I would love to have my own bee hive. (I was especially excited when I was given a sneak preview of the Flow Hive!)
Unfortunately, though, I am highly allergic to bee stings.
So I have to rely on other people for my honey. (And I support local bee populations by having a bee-friendly garden. With all the stresses of chemicals, increasing weather extremes and lack of flowers and suitable water in the suburbs, bees need all the help they can get – especially when we rely on them for pollinating most of our fruit and vegetables.)
Buying honey in bulk
Years ago I used to take my jars to buy my honey from the bulk stores at a local health shop. Often – but not always – it was local honey.
Somehow, I got out of the practice, though – probably because my household didn’t consume much honey.
But then that changed. Now the honey consumption has gone up dramatically.
Buying local honey
Most recently, I have been buying my honey from a lovely old husband and wife team at my local farmers market.
The honey is delicious – and it is quite reasonably priced.
But it does come in plastic jars and buckets.
And that’s something I wasn’t too keen on.
I can understand how much lighter plastic jars are than glass ones – and they don’t break.
But they are plastic.
And that’s what all the honey sellers at my farmers market use.
Local honey comes in glass
So I was delighted when today I discovered in a shop – quite by chance – glass jars of local honey.
Woo hoo! How good is that? And in Plastic Free July too!
Yes, this local honey cost me a little more money – but that’s because it comes in glass…and glass costs more than plastic because we don’t pay for all the costs that plastic causes (like damage to local environments, animals and our climate). And what price can you put on a healthy home?
So, naturally I bought it. (And you can probably see from the picture at the top of the post that I was due to buy honey pretty soon anyway.)
Finally, writing this post has reminded me that I can buy honey without any packaging. That would be even better! I’ll keep you posted.
The challenge
If you eat honey (or any other food that *requires* packaging, see if you can buy it:
- from a local supplier
- in non-plastic packaging – or even without packaging (by taking your own container to a shop or other place where you can buy it ‘in bulk’.
Let me know how you go!
Join me!
Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.
So let’s embark on this journey together.
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A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!
Till next time…