As the only parent in the FOE Malta team I knew I would be facing some different challenges to my team members and I was interested to see how this would impact on our life as a family with a toddler. As the only parent in the FOE Malta team I knew I would be facing some different challenges to my team members and I was interested to see how this would impact on our life as a family with a toddler.
We already do most of our home cooking from scratch, and I was quite chuffed when I went through my food shopping list and found it would be relatively easy to cut out the plastics. I do have a sweet tooth and usually have a stock of biscuits in the house but these, along with the treats for my toddler, are always wrapped in some form of plastic. The easy solution to this is home baking!!! It’s easy to buy plastic free ingredients to ‘make your own’ and there is the nutritional bonus of knowing exactly what is in your treats.
Heading out and about with a toddler was like a challenge within a challenge and the key to making it a plastic free success was to BE PREPARED. I created a little ‘survival kit’ to keep with me at all times. Items in my kit included reusable straws, plenty of water in reusable bottles, cotton wool for the dreaded nappy changes and of course lots of yummy homemade snacks.
The impossible! The vast majority of parents will agree that babies, toddlers and children do need some form of milk as part of a healthy and balanced diet. Unfortunately, all milk in Malta now comes in plastic lined cartons with plastic caps. There are many groups and movements who are lobbying to get this changed so be sure to support these movements where you can.
Unless you are one of those parents who is committed to ‘potty training from birth’ (yes that is a thing) then nappies will feature heavily in the first 2 to 3 years of your child’s life. It is now possible to buy reusable nappies with either biodegradable liners or washable liners. This means that, apart from the initial plastic packaging, your child’s toileting need not result in landfills full of plastic waste. The added bonuses here are that you will save 100s (possibly 1000s if you have multiple children) of Euros over the years AND reusable nappies are much kinder to your babies delicate skin. Reusable wipes are also now becoming popular although I prefer traditional cotton wool and water.
The fear that ‘environmentally friendly’ equals ‘very expensive’ is often a reason why so many low income families would not consider taking part in a challenge like this. However, I was pleasantly surprised that my plastic free month did not end up costing us the earth. Yes, some of my items (mainly toiletries) did work out to be more expensive than what I’d usually buy but this was balanced against the fact that I actually consumed a lot less in quantity. I found that our diets improved with the home baking and its especially comforting to know that my little one had less salt and sugar in his diet.
Most families will find much of what they need for a challenge like this is already in their cupboards: Tupperware (yes its plastic but use what you have and when buying more in the future you can look into aluminium); cotton bags and the ‘bags for life’ (if you have a draw full of plastic bags why not reuse those for potatoes and veggies); glass jars are great for keeping things you buy in bulk nice and fresh.