What will you do for Lent?
A time of fasting, abstinence reading and reflecting on the Bible or spiritual texts. and / or doing something else, the Lent course…. or an extra act of kindness? What will you do this Lent?
One idea is to give up, not chocolate, biscuits, cake or alcohol, helping only yourself, but to give up single use plastic, helping all of us. It sounds very mundane, but this plastic is a harmful product now in our food chain, in the soil, in the oceans. Imagine, if we could reduce or replace this product?
When I was young, fruit and veg. was sold in paper bags: butchers, fishmongers and bakers used paper or greaseproof paper. Today, most of these products are packaged in single use plastic. But we can make a difference, we could help to change things. This won’t be easy, it will try your patience, it will take time but……. it is Lent. So, what practically can we do? Here are a few thoughts, I am sure that you can think of others.
Change buying habits: buy fruit and veg. from greengrocers, market stalls where products are sold in paper bags or if they offer only plastic bags take your own paper or sustainable bags. Visit butchers and fishmongers.
If you need your fruit, veg. and meat delivered, there are sustainable companies who will deliver organic produce. I can recommend Riverford deliveries. We have their veg.boxes; all seasonal, very tasty and delivered in a returnable cardboard box. Sometimes some veg. is put in what looks like a plastic bag but it isn’t, it is compostable. One wonders why Supermarkets don’t use these.
If you visit cafes for a takeaway drink, take your own cup…..many of the takeaway ones unfortunately aren’t recyclable and for hot drinks the inner lining is plastic.
If you shop in Supermarkets and have all your veg fruit and meat wrapped in the single use plastic, you can give back the packaging: Sainsbury, Waitrose and Tesco all say they will take it back. So, return it to them on the next trip. It will be incinerated but you will be showing them that you don’t want it.
Venture into a zero waste shop, with your own containers, there’s one at the apex of North Street and High Street in Guildford called “Solar sisters”. There you will find nuts, cereals, pulses and grains to buy. Along with refills of shampoo and cleaning products. it’s a cafe too so you could enjoy the experience!
Buy products in glass or tins other than in plastic containers.
Write to your favourite Supermarket and tell them what you are doing, ask if they will stop using single use plastic. This may change procedures and processes in those very useful stores.
These may be too much to do, or you may have even more ideas, but we need to start the change.
An act of kindness for the world.
Genesis 1:28 - 'God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’