Reducing Waste - The Tray Of Chicken

I know it's not really a direct allotment topic but its something related in my mind. Growing my own food reduces the carbon and plastic required to Maintain my life style, and I want to extend that into more of my life. 

For a while now I have need aware of the amount of packaging I discard in the kitchen. I buy a pack of chicken in a plastic tray, take it home and repack it into sandwich bags to freeze. That big thick plastic tray is only used to carry the chicken home before I throw it away, even though it will take hundreds of years to break down. But chicken breasts are not the only product like that, apples in bags, mushrooms in trays covered in film, bags of carrots potatoes and onions, and the list goes on. 

So what can I do to reduce the amount of waste I make?

Well first on my list is that terrible offender the supermarket chicken breasts, they are properly the meat we eat the most often so if I can change that one it will be a good start. So last week I bought some silicone food bags, they are reusable so I wont have to dispose of them for years if looked after properly. Then at the weekend I went shopping with a friend old school style, i.e. on the high street. The butcher was more than happy to put my chicken into the bag I gave him, zero packaging taken home, so that's a win. 

One concern with shopping on the high street is that it would cost more. So comparing prices the supermarket chicken is £5.85 per kg, and the butcher is £6.59. This equates to about a 13% increase or a 16p increase per meal for 2, which is a little high but acceptable. I am sure I can reduce costs elsewhere to keep the household budget down. 

I hope to continue this by finding other ways to cut back on my waste, some I have already tried and will write about soon and some I am still planning. 

Reducing waste will never be a sudden switch, its a process of assessing our own individual lives and identifying what we can do. The solution will not be the same for all of us but we can all do something.