Kitchen

This may be your biggest opportunity, with most room for improvement. I develop this page similarly to those others. I provide examples obviously concerning my issues, but everyone will differ.

COFFEE

My activity in my kitchen usually involves a ‘Bialetti Moka’ (or one of my 3) making my Espresso. 

I own up to being obsessed by Bialetti coffee machines. I have loved coffee for over two decades, but it was around ten years ago that I moved to live independently (following my injury, coma, hospital, and rehabilitation homes). A number of reasons influenced my selection of a ‘Bialetti-Moka’ as my method of coffee-production. The main reason, being that this method creates no waste. The machine is washed with nothing but water, ready for use again.

Drink more coffee, without any waste?

It still alarms me that the majority of the British public, ignore this, fit with the fashion of coffee capsules. ‘Recyclable’ or not, they are objects which are a waste of everything. They are surplus to requirements. But people consume this rubbish because George Clooney advertised them. 

    

Bialetti responsibly use their eco-credentials, as a selling point, and a voice to raise public awareness of Eco-issues.

Grind -your-own coffee, buy the beans, not pre-packed sachets.

The taste of your coffee, always depends on the key element, the coffee bean. As it is the most important element, surely you can only enjoy it if you know about it. Where is it from? Who and how are the beans farmed? Who is getting your money (ultimately)?

Buy ethically sourced beans

https://www.equalexchange.co.uk

When drinking in cafes, always check on their attitude, that you are buying from them.

Ensure that the upmost is done.

Is the coffee ethically sourced?

Are you harming the habitat, or is the waste that you create part of a sustainable loop?

https://naturepac.co.uk

https://www.natureworksllc.com/What-is-Ingeo

Photos/images above and below are from top, independent shop 'Surbeanton' (https://www.surbeanton.com)

PASTA-PACKAGING

One of the most popular dishes, throughout the entire globe must be one of the simplest to store and serve. Different sauces may seem to provide endless compilations of results. Dishes always consist of a base, on top of which sauces can vary the taste.

When one visits a supermarket, they can usually find endless shelves stacked full of potatoes, rice, cous-cous, noodles and other ‘bases’. They will then find an equally sized space reserved for stocks of dried pasta.

Bags and bags and bags...

Plastic bags

... more unnecessary plastic!

Paper bags may be seen as too weak, manufacturers may fear damaged goods. Full concealment may not be totally necessary (unlike meat and dairy portions).

Cardboard boxes are the way forward! 

Plastic bags are not needed.

One of the world’s largest producer’s of pasta, ‘Barilla’, should be praised for facing, and tackling this issue strongly. We must ask our supermarkets and other mass-producers, to stop making more ‘single-use plastic bags’! If one of the world’s biggest producers can take an ‘ecological approach’, then why cannot our supermarkets?

https://www.barilla.com/en-gb

Once a positive, progressive adaptation can be made in such a broad industry as ‘pasta’, changes will be made elsewhere too.

Organic Cons-Cous could rapidly follow Pasta packaging, away from the polymer shown above.

Supermarkets will change, industries will change, and social habits will change.

It all starts with YOU.

The more that you are aware of the issues, the more changes you will demand.

Improvements can be designed or solutions will be discovered. Why are we using time that we don’t have? Improvements must be made. FAST.

Both the 'Barrilla' and the 'Rummo' packets (above and below), do incorporate a plastic 'viewing' window. Personally, I don't feel that this necessary. If plastic is to be eliminated entirely, designers will have fun, getting around this problem, even if Pasta logos/symbols are incorporated in packaging designs.