No Impact Man

1. I shop at a local food store that sells Fairtrade, organic and local foods with none of the packaging that supermarkets wrap their produce up in.
2. I try and avoid food that has had to travel ridiculous distances to get to me – although I’m struggling on bananas

I watched No Impact Man a few months ago and it was the jump start I needed to make some bigger changes than choosing to have a recycling bin in our room (which is more just out of laziness of not wanting to walk to the kitchen when I want to throw away a scrap of paper). Colin Beavan and his family decide to try and go a whole year without creating any carbon. This means no food with hundreds of food miles, no electricity, no fridge, no cars, no tubes, no take away coffees, no TV, no heating, no cosmetics and cleaning products that come in plastic bottles that can’t be refilled, the list goes on. The film is a great insight into what you really need and what you can live without. You watch as Colin and his wife’s relationship grows and stumbles as they make changes and decide what their future holds. You watch their young daughter, unfazed by the changes, learn about growing vegetables and making compost. This film opened my eyes to what more I could do to lessen my carbon footprint. The day after watching it I researched where my local fruit and veg shop was. To my embarrassment it was less than 5 minutes walk away. It sells unpackaged fruit and veg – local where possible, plus a huge range of fair-trade and organic products from vegetarian cheese to paraben-free shampoo to icecream. I haven’t bought vegetables anywhere else since. On top of this I’ve discovered a fantastic shop called Unpackaged in London that sells everything just as it is, with no packaging. Rice, sugar, flour, shampoo. You take your own containers, weigh them and then fill up with as much or as little as you desire. Unfortunately, due to my poor London geography, this shop has yet to be found by me. I came close…but just never managed to round that last elusive corner and find it. I wont give up though. Unpackaged – I will find you.

Local, unpackaged produce wasn’t the only food-related change I made though. The film made me think harder about where my food came from, distance wise. During the year, the Beavan family only ate local, in season food bought from farmers markets and grown in and around New York City. This was something I definitely hadn’t considered before. For a while I managed to avoid those foods that have flown more than I ever have just to get to me. Bananas, sugar snap peas, mangoes, grapes, wine. Wine was tricky. Our corner shop isn’t exactly stocked with quality alcohol, let alone any local, organic versions. In the end, when late for a party, we picked a bottle from the closest country in our price range – South Africa. I have to admit that this rule has slipped close to the bottom of the pile. I do guiltily eat a banana with my organic muesli and local yoghurt in the mornings. And I just love sugar snap peas. (They are twice as bad as I can’t find them anywhere other than a big supermarket, clad in plastic that can’t be recycled). However, my reasoning is that we can’t all be perfect. And if everyone stopped eating bananas in countries that don’t grow them then what would happen to all those people that grow bananas? I realise this is a cop out, but I do restrain myself. It’s an area for improvement.