Where to buy your plastic-free products in and around Edinburgh:
This page is under construction - feel free to add comments on places you know about so we can add them in!
Fruit and Vegetables:
Most supermarkets allow you to get your fruit and veg plastic-free - just put them in your trolley as they are without plastic, or for trickier items like mushrooms, you might want to carry along some paper bags or compostable bags. A lot of small newsagents also have vegetables.
Some items can be hard to find however, such as salad leaves, cucumbers (why are cucumbers ALWAYS packed in plastic?), soft berries etc. Here is a list of good greengrocers around town:
Marchmont:
Stockbridge:
Dairy Products
Milk: I've haven't found this sold in glass bottles yet in any shops (or even in any farm shops, though I haven't checked them all). The following places do glass bottle delivery to your doorstep, which is amazing:
Mcqueen's Dairy - 74 p per pint - contact 0141 332 9608 or email info@mcqueensdairies.co.uk
Wisemans - 67p per bottle - contact 0131 440 4828
Pete's Farm Shop - 64p per pint - contact 0131 337 6551, and check out his website http://petesfarmshop.net/ - he also delivers other local goods, a lot of which look to be plastic-free.
All of these come with a plastic top unfortunately, but you can recycle those apparently at Lush (where, if you are really going plastic-free, I'm sure you'll end up at some point, as they sell the magical toothy tabs (see toiletry section below))
Cheese: Most supermarkets with a delicatessen counter will wrap up cheese in greaseproof paper wrapping, or will put the cheese straight into a tupperware box if you bring one along. A good tip is always carry some greaseproof paper (baking parchment, sold in most supermarkets), or tupperware, or compostable bags (the ones you get to recycle food waste, or strange as this may sound, for picking up dog poo... they are all good!) - while the people serving at the counter might not have any paper on hand, if you provide it, they are normally happy to oblige. Another nice thing about doing this is that (depending what type of cheese you get) - it is often cheaper at the deli counter than if you buy the pre-packed plastic ones. Score!
Most delicatessens will also use paper wrapping if you buy their cheeses. There are also a few specialist cheese shops around town (L Mellis, for example)... they tend to be a bit pricey though.
For cottage cheese - I'm not sure there is anywhere in town which sells this not in plastic. For cream cheese - the best I could find were the Laughing Cow cheeses which come in little triangles wrapped in foil. You may well end up eating a lot of Boursin - which is one of the few supermarket cheese products to come in foil and paper. And for the intrepid amongst you - Maqbool's supermarket next to the Edinburgh mosque has an intriguing range of cheeses in glass jars.
Yoghurt: Good luck! I think this only comes in plastic, unless you want to make your own! I do remember when i was younger having yoghurt in glass jars - but i didn't manage to find any this month. Let us know if you have any tips on how to get around this!
Butter: Sold in most big stores in the greaseproof paper wrapping (for example, Tesco's own brand value butter).
Ice-cream: This one is tricky. Most ice-cream tubs do have plastic in - even the ultra-eco friendly Ben and Jerry's ones. We discovered that Scotmid have an own brand ice-cream which claims the pot is totally recyclable, apart from the film round the top. I think that is the best you may find.
Fish
As with the cheese and the meat sections, most supermarket deli counters will put fish into a tupperware box directly if you provide the box. In addition, there are some great fishmongers in Edinburgh, who will provide you with fish and smoked fish wrapping free if you ask.
Marchmont:
- Eddie's Seafood Market: one of the best fish shops in town, with a wild array of fish, urchins, seafood etc. They also smoke their own fish, and are happy to provide all of tis in paper wrapping (smoked fish you will need to ask specifically in paper, as they normally sell in plastic).
- Sheila's Fishmonger
Stockbridge:
- G Armstrong - a selection of fish in the window to scare small children, this fishmonger also does smoked fish and is happy to wrap this in paper if you bring your own (we'd recommend baking parchment / waxed paper, or else it can get messy!)
Have you got info on other areas? let me know!
Meat
Supermarket delis will put meat directly into a tupperware container for you if you provide it (you need to be a bit vigilant with whether they weigh it on a plastic sheet or not, providing them with some greaseproof paper if they don't have any on hand solves this problem). There are also excellent butchers all over town who are happy to do the same - and most use paper to weigh and wrap their meat anyway. Crombies on Broughton Road is my favourite.
Bread and Staples (Rice, Pasta, Beans etc)
Bread: While big supermarkets do tend to have a bakery section where they freshly bake bread - they seem to wrap exclusively in plastic. for small rolls, cheese twists etc - if you take along your own bag, you can help yourself and avoid the plastic - but for all the larger loaves, it's hard to avoid the plastic.
There are some excellent bakeries around town - the one's I ended up going to were Earthy Foods (Newington, Cannonmills and Portobello) which has a great selection of bread, and they provide paper bags to wrap it, Manna House on Easter Road, the Wee Boulangerie on Newington Road...
Rice: Real Foods have bulk bins of rice (all types, risotto rice, basmatic, long grain and short grain etc) - take along your own container and they will weigh it before putting in your grains. They also sell flour and cereals like this.
Pasta: While you can get lasagne sheets in almost every supermarket in an all cardboard box, pasta is extremely tricky to find! Almost all brands are in plastic, or in cardboard with a plastic window (grrrr). The only one I found was Barilla Pasta - which comes in a cardboard container and is really delicious. They sell it in Peckhams on Newington Road.
Cereal: Most cereal comes with a plastic inner wrapper. Real Foods sells muesli or varying types in bulk bins - so you can take along a container and help yourself. Weetabix also recently introduced a new eco-friendly paper wrapper for the inner wrappings - but after some very amusing emails back and forth with Weetabix (in which we never got a straight answer to the question - is there plastic in this?) - we think the 'special lining' they refer to may mean that while the wrappers are mostly paper, they are coated in plastic. It's definitely almost paper though!!
Treats! Chocolate, Cookies etc
Chocolate: Chocolate is easier than you'd imagine - while you have to avoid most of the chocolate snack bars such as Mars bars, Snickers etc - a lot of chocolate bars come in paper and foil wrapping. The hardest bit seems to be trying to tell if the inner leaf covering the chocolate includes plastic or not. if you crunch it up and it wrinkles - it is probably paper. If it doesn't wrinkle up - it is probably plastic. The most reliable bars are Divine Chocolate, the Fairtrade Chocolote on sale in supermarkets, and quite often homebrand chocolates. A couple of fancy chocolate shops around town also wrap their chocolate in paper - such as Coco of Bruntsfield.
Cookies: Cookies are really hard to find plastic free - unless you are willing to pay a small fortune for individual cookies in coffee shops. We ended up making our own. A great tip is just to make a big batch, then use some greaseproof paper to roll the dough into long sausage shapes and wrap it up and shove it in the freezer. You can then just cut off circles of frozen dough and cook them up whenever in need of a sugary treat. The only issues is that it is very difficult to get fruit and nuts in no plastic in Edinburgh. There apparently used to be a place which sold these in bulk bins and you could help yourself - but this is not there any more. I ended up using my stash of fruit and nuts from before the plastic free challenge - but it would be good to find a plastic free alternative. LEt me know if you know of anywhere! The other challenge is butter - make sure you buy butter in the greaseproof paper wraps. All the others have plastic in.
Sweets: Bring back the pick and mix! there are a few places, such as Candy Cupcake in Marchmont, doing exactly this. Chose your own sweets, in a paper bag, old school style.
Toiletries and Cleaning Products:
Soap: Use a bar of soap instead of shower gel. Widely available and cheaper than shower gel too.
Shampoo: Lush has some solid shampoos which people rave about. One bar is supposed to last about 80 washes (but i guess that depends on hair length?!). There are some hardcore plastic-free people out there that make their own shampoo (look up My Plastic Free Life blog... she's amazing!!).
Conditioner: Lush also does a solid conditioner - but it seems a bit strange to me and reviews from fellow plastic-free challengers were not great.
Toothpaste: Lush makes a product called Toothy Tabs - solid toothpaste tabs that you chew and then they foam up like toothpaste. definitely worth trying, and they come in some weird and wonderful flavours.
Moisturiser: There are a few brands which put their moisturisers in glass jars (Boots Botanics, for example). A few local companies also do this - Miss Ballantyne (sold in Curiouser and Curiouser on Broughton Road and a few other places) makes some wonderful skin products and sells them in glass. The Lothian Natural Skincare company does the same - and sells at local markets in Edinburgh (Stockbridge, Castle Street etc). Their beeswax moisturising bars are wonderful.
Deodorant: Lush makes a solid deodorant which works well - but it smells of patchouli and makes me think of incense sticks and old ladies, so I'm not a big fan. They also make some completely bizarre powders (one smells of rosemary, and makes me think of roast chicken, the other has charcoal in and as far as i can work out, is grey so... not great for wearing with clothes (!) - perhaps made with naturalists in mind?). They key ingredients in both these powders is bicarbonate of soda - yes, that's right - baking powder! I ended up using a beeswax moisturising bar from the Lothian Natural Skincare Company, which smells delicious - and then dabbing some baking powder (you can mix it with talcum powder if you want to dilute it, or with arrowroot - which is really dry so absorbs sweat). this is honestly the best deodorant i have ever used in my life. Be aware that bicarb of soda is very alkali - and so if you have sensitive skin, it can cause problems.
Cleaning products for around the house: Use washing powder (comes in cardboard box) rather than washing liquid. Use Ecover or Ecoleaf refillable bottles for dishwashing liquid and washing liquid - you can get refills at Earthy Foods, as well as in the New Leaf in Marchmont. Surface cleaner is tricky - you can make your own from lemon juice and vinegar (!) - but we ended up compromising on this one. Window cleaner: you can make your own using vinegar. There are a range of suggestions on how to clean using natural products: lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda, and vinegar seem to be the key ingredients in all of them.
Happy plastic-free living!! Good luck.
This page is under construction - feel free to add comments on places you know about so we can add them in!
Fruit and Vegetables:
Most supermarkets allow you to get your fruit and veg plastic-free - just put them in your trolley as they are without plastic, or for trickier items like mushrooms, you might want to carry along some paper bags or compostable bags. A lot of small newsagents also have vegetables.
Some items can be hard to find however, such as salad leaves, cucumbers (why are cucumbers ALWAYS packed in plastic?), soft berries etc. Here is a list of good greengrocers around town:
Marchmont:
- On Argyle Place, Sciennes Road and Marchmont Road there are around 5 grocers, all of which are excellent. They have every type of fruit and veg you can imagine, and mostly all of it plastic-free. Where not plastic-free, you can just ask them to empty the fruit and veg into your bags and they reuse their plastic... easy! This is good as all their deals come plastic wrapped.
- There are a couple of greengrocers on Great Junction Street who would likely sell their wares naked. Laurie's personal favourite is Fruit Heaven.
- Leith Walk also has a few: Tattie Shaw, City Fruit Supply and Leith Walk Fruits
Stockbridge:
- Tariq's (11 Deanhaugh Street) - sells an impressive assortment of fruit and veg, including (according to Laurie) Edinburgh's biggest fennel bulbs.
Dairy Products
Milk: I've haven't found this sold in glass bottles yet in any shops (or even in any farm shops, though I haven't checked them all). The following places do glass bottle delivery to your doorstep, which is amazing:
Mcqueen's Dairy - 74 p per pint - contact 0141 332 9608 or email info@mcqueensdairies.co.uk
Wisemans - 67p per bottle - contact 0131 440 4828
Pete's Farm Shop - 64p per pint - contact 0131 337 6551, and check out his website http://petesfarmshop.net/ - he also delivers other local goods, a lot of which look to be plastic-free.
All of these come with a plastic top unfortunately, but you can recycle those apparently at Lush (where, if you are really going plastic-free, I'm sure you'll end up at some point, as they sell the magical toothy tabs (see toiletry section below))
Cheese: Most supermarkets with a delicatessen counter will wrap up cheese in greaseproof paper wrapping, or will put the cheese straight into a tupperware box if you bring one along. A good tip is always carry some greaseproof paper (baking parchment, sold in most supermarkets), or tupperware, or compostable bags (the ones you get to recycle food waste, or strange as this may sound, for picking up dog poo... they are all good!) - while the people serving at the counter might not have any paper on hand, if you provide it, they are normally happy to oblige. Another nice thing about doing this is that (depending what type of cheese you get) - it is often cheaper at the deli counter than if you buy the pre-packed plastic ones. Score!
Most delicatessens will also use paper wrapping if you buy their cheeses. There are also a few specialist cheese shops around town (L Mellis, for example)... they tend to be a bit pricey though.
For cottage cheese - I'm not sure there is anywhere in town which sells this not in plastic. For cream cheese - the best I could find were the Laughing Cow cheeses which come in little triangles wrapped in foil. You may well end up eating a lot of Boursin - which is one of the few supermarket cheese products to come in foil and paper. And for the intrepid amongst you - Maqbool's supermarket next to the Edinburgh mosque has an intriguing range of cheeses in glass jars.
Yoghurt: Good luck! I think this only comes in plastic, unless you want to make your own! I do remember when i was younger having yoghurt in glass jars - but i didn't manage to find any this month. Let us know if you have any tips on how to get around this!
Butter: Sold in most big stores in the greaseproof paper wrapping (for example, Tesco's own brand value butter).
Ice-cream: This one is tricky. Most ice-cream tubs do have plastic in - even the ultra-eco friendly Ben and Jerry's ones. We discovered that Scotmid have an own brand ice-cream which claims the pot is totally recyclable, apart from the film round the top. I think that is the best you may find.
Fish
As with the cheese and the meat sections, most supermarket deli counters will put fish into a tupperware box directly if you provide the box. In addition, there are some great fishmongers in Edinburgh, who will provide you with fish and smoked fish wrapping free if you ask.
Marchmont:
- Eddie's Seafood Market: one of the best fish shops in town, with a wild array of fish, urchins, seafood etc. They also smoke their own fish, and are happy to provide all of tis in paper wrapping (smoked fish you will need to ask specifically in paper, as they normally sell in plastic).
- Sheila's Fishmonger
Stockbridge:
- G Armstrong - a selection of fish in the window to scare small children, this fishmonger also does smoked fish and is happy to wrap this in paper if you bring your own (we'd recommend baking parchment / waxed paper, or else it can get messy!)
Have you got info on other areas? let me know!
Meat
Supermarket delis will put meat directly into a tupperware container for you if you provide it (you need to be a bit vigilant with whether they weigh it on a plastic sheet or not, providing them with some greaseproof paper if they don't have any on hand solves this problem). There are also excellent butchers all over town who are happy to do the same - and most use paper to weigh and wrap their meat anyway. Crombies on Broughton Road is my favourite.
Bread and Staples (Rice, Pasta, Beans etc)
Bread: While big supermarkets do tend to have a bakery section where they freshly bake bread - they seem to wrap exclusively in plastic. for small rolls, cheese twists etc - if you take along your own bag, you can help yourself and avoid the plastic - but for all the larger loaves, it's hard to avoid the plastic.
There are some excellent bakeries around town - the one's I ended up going to were Earthy Foods (Newington, Cannonmills and Portobello) which has a great selection of bread, and they provide paper bags to wrap it, Manna House on Easter Road, the Wee Boulangerie on Newington Road...
Rice: Real Foods have bulk bins of rice (all types, risotto rice, basmatic, long grain and short grain etc) - take along your own container and they will weigh it before putting in your grains. They also sell flour and cereals like this.
Pasta: While you can get lasagne sheets in almost every supermarket in an all cardboard box, pasta is extremely tricky to find! Almost all brands are in plastic, or in cardboard with a plastic window (grrrr). The only one I found was Barilla Pasta - which comes in a cardboard container and is really delicious. They sell it in Peckhams on Newington Road.
Cereal: Most cereal comes with a plastic inner wrapper. Real Foods sells muesli or varying types in bulk bins - so you can take along a container and help yourself. Weetabix also recently introduced a new eco-friendly paper wrapper for the inner wrappings - but after some very amusing emails back and forth with Weetabix (in which we never got a straight answer to the question - is there plastic in this?) - we think the 'special lining' they refer to may mean that while the wrappers are mostly paper, they are coated in plastic. It's definitely almost paper though!!
Treats! Chocolate, Cookies etc
Chocolate: Chocolate is easier than you'd imagine - while you have to avoid most of the chocolate snack bars such as Mars bars, Snickers etc - a lot of chocolate bars come in paper and foil wrapping. The hardest bit seems to be trying to tell if the inner leaf covering the chocolate includes plastic or not. if you crunch it up and it wrinkles - it is probably paper. If it doesn't wrinkle up - it is probably plastic. The most reliable bars are Divine Chocolate, the Fairtrade Chocolote on sale in supermarkets, and quite often homebrand chocolates. A couple of fancy chocolate shops around town also wrap their chocolate in paper - such as Coco of Bruntsfield.
Cookies: Cookies are really hard to find plastic free - unless you are willing to pay a small fortune for individual cookies in coffee shops. We ended up making our own. A great tip is just to make a big batch, then use some greaseproof paper to roll the dough into long sausage shapes and wrap it up and shove it in the freezer. You can then just cut off circles of frozen dough and cook them up whenever in need of a sugary treat. The only issues is that it is very difficult to get fruit and nuts in no plastic in Edinburgh. There apparently used to be a place which sold these in bulk bins and you could help yourself - but this is not there any more. I ended up using my stash of fruit and nuts from before the plastic free challenge - but it would be good to find a plastic free alternative. LEt me know if you know of anywhere! The other challenge is butter - make sure you buy butter in the greaseproof paper wraps. All the others have plastic in.
Sweets: Bring back the pick and mix! there are a few places, such as Candy Cupcake in Marchmont, doing exactly this. Chose your own sweets, in a paper bag, old school style.
Toiletries and Cleaning Products:
Soap: Use a bar of soap instead of shower gel. Widely available and cheaper than shower gel too.
Shampoo: Lush has some solid shampoos which people rave about. One bar is supposed to last about 80 washes (but i guess that depends on hair length?!). There are some hardcore plastic-free people out there that make their own shampoo (look up My Plastic Free Life blog... she's amazing!!).
Conditioner: Lush also does a solid conditioner - but it seems a bit strange to me and reviews from fellow plastic-free challengers were not great.
Toothpaste: Lush makes a product called Toothy Tabs - solid toothpaste tabs that you chew and then they foam up like toothpaste. definitely worth trying, and they come in some weird and wonderful flavours.
Moisturiser: There are a few brands which put their moisturisers in glass jars (Boots Botanics, for example). A few local companies also do this - Miss Ballantyne (sold in Curiouser and Curiouser on Broughton Road and a few other places) makes some wonderful skin products and sells them in glass. The Lothian Natural Skincare company does the same - and sells at local markets in Edinburgh (Stockbridge, Castle Street etc). Their beeswax moisturising bars are wonderful.
Deodorant: Lush makes a solid deodorant which works well - but it smells of patchouli and makes me think of incense sticks and old ladies, so I'm not a big fan. They also make some completely bizarre powders (one smells of rosemary, and makes me think of roast chicken, the other has charcoal in and as far as i can work out, is grey so... not great for wearing with clothes (!) - perhaps made with naturalists in mind?). They key ingredients in both these powders is bicarbonate of soda - yes, that's right - baking powder! I ended up using a beeswax moisturising bar from the Lothian Natural Skincare Company, which smells delicious - and then dabbing some baking powder (you can mix it with talcum powder if you want to dilute it, or with arrowroot - which is really dry so absorbs sweat). this is honestly the best deodorant i have ever used in my life. Be aware that bicarb of soda is very alkali - and so if you have sensitive skin, it can cause problems.
Cleaning products for around the house: Use washing powder (comes in cardboard box) rather than washing liquid. Use Ecover or Ecoleaf refillable bottles for dishwashing liquid and washing liquid - you can get refills at Earthy Foods, as well as in the New Leaf in Marchmont. Surface cleaner is tricky - you can make your own from lemon juice and vinegar (!) - but we ended up compromising on this one. Window cleaner: you can make your own using vinegar. There are a range of suggestions on how to clean using natural products: lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda, and vinegar seem to be the key ingredients in all of them.
Happy plastic-free living!! Good luck.
Fish:
ReplyDeleteG. Armstrong in Stockbridge will wrap all fish in plastic-free paper if requested.
Household cleaning items:
ReplyDeleteReal Foods stocks Ecover laundry powder and dishwasher powder in cardboard boxes.
Thank you so much for this list, it's going to be really handy in reducing our reliance on plastic.
ReplyDelete