Being Aware and trying to do my bit
I think anyone with a smart phone and a news feed knows what kind of impact our lifestyle has on our planet. Overflowing landfills, oceans full of our garbage, choked sewers and what not. I am just trying to consciously contribute less to this waste generation and reduce my environmental impact on the planet. Plastic is definitely one of the bigger contributors to this impact on the environment and I try different things at home as well as at my patisserie to reduce the amount of plastic used.
Baby steps for my Lifestyle:
I feel that I have made very small changes to my lifestyle but I am hoping to add more to them slowly. The changes I have made till now hardly take up any extra time than the disposable or plastic products I used before or was handed out at stores. They just take a bit of conscious effort to remember or get used to it in the beginning and now it starts coming naturally to me:
- Move away from Disposable Sanitary Napkins:
I have partially moved on from sanitary pads to reusable cloth
pads and period panties. I am sure with more practice and use I will be able to switch to these fully. I am not comfortable with the idea of a menstrual cup but the reusable cloth pads suit me quite well. - Bring Your Own Bag:
I now always carry a cloth bag in my handbag in case I purchase something. Even though Bangalore has technically banned single use plastic, most stores still give out plastic lined or bioplastic based bags. My handy cloth bag helps me avoid all this plastic and frankly, can carry more load than the plastic or bioplastic bags.
- Bring Your Own Bottle:
I almost always carry my own bottle so that way I don’t have to buy water bottles.
Baby steps for my patisserie:
At The Humble Pie, we have taken conscious efforts and made significant progress to reduce the amount of plastic we generate as a food business.
1. Plastic Free Deliveries:
We use newspaper bags (with our logo and a jute rope handle) for our deliveries instead of plastic lined brown paper bags. This not just contributes to plastic reduction but also reduces carbon footprint because most manufacturers use virgin brown paper to make their bags.
2. A lot of our orders are also for dessert jars which are in glass jars thereby reducing the need forusing any further packaging or plastic use for their deliveries.The other orders are packed in boxes and we are now focusing on reducing our plastic consumption there as well.
3. In our store we use silicone piping bags. Earlier, we used go through one bag of disposable piping bags in a month but now with silicone piping bags, we haven’t bought disposable piping bags in nearly 10 months.
4. Instead of selling mineral water bottles in our stores, we offer clean drinking water to all customers in glasses. They are also free to refill their bottles at no charge.
5. Our furniture is all wood without the use of any plastic and we use steel cutlery for our dine-in
customers.
We also don’t use any sugar sachets but provide jars of sugar on each table.
What we are working on reducing right now
- We are now working on reducing take out food in single use plastic containers. We are switching to lining-free paper boxes for our desserts soon and this will help cut out the only bit of plastic packaging we are still using.
- I hope that with a growth in our size of business, I can find more effective plastic-free alternatives for our packaging which are also good for the environment and that will keep the integrity of the food. Currently we used cardboard based boxes but they are lined with plastic.
- For our dine-in customers, we are soon shifting to non-plastic plates as well.
What comes next
- Reducing plastic waste at home. I have found this more challenging than reducing plastic waste in my store. I am hoping slowly I can educate my family more and they will agree to take small steps with me towards a low plastic lifestyle.
- I also want to reduce my lotion consumption as that is one of the top 5 plastic products from my personal consumption
- For the patisserie, I am hoping to find a viable alternative to cling wrap used in kitchens. This is probably our biggest plastic contributor in the kitchen and I would love to find a replacement that can be used by kitchens world over.
Little by little, I feel that the actions I take at home or at the patisserie add up and have a better impact on the environment than just going with industrial norms or not experimenting (at home or at the patisserie). I would definitely urge people to start with small easy to do steps so that it starts feeling like a habit instead of feeling like making an effort to do the right thing for the environment.
About the Author:
Mrudula is a professional chef and runs a patisserie called The Humble Pie (@thehumblepie.india), which has two branches in Bangalore. As a small business owner she is trying her best to reduce her brand’s plastic footprint as well as reduce the wastage created. Her Plastic Footprint is 21.5 kilos and with her next interventions, this is likely to come down by 3 kilos. You can also see the impact made by her patisserie in reducing plastic consumption by visiting their outlets in HSR Layout or Kormangala in Bangalore or ordering online from Zomato and Swiggy .