Low-waste Living Changes And Improvements

I've been buying things on amazon lately, mainly because I was having trouble finding some of the things I wanted to in the physical stores. That being said, I have since I posted a little while ago about low-waste living and the things I do or would like to do, bought some stuff so thought I would post something of an update. I wrote about the bamboo travel mug with the silicone lid and grip, which I love and think it's great for getting hot drinks when out and travelling. Last week I bought a 1 litre stainless-steel flask. It's a double-walled flask, so according to the description it keeps drinks hot or cold for up to 12 hours. I haven't tested it yet, but I chose a double-walled flask because I heard Imi who runs the Sustainably Vegan youtube channel saying that the single-walled flasks burn or freeze your hand. I gave the bamboo mug to my nan because I thought I won't be needing it now. I realized afterwards that either I'll have to get a rather large amount of tea when I get tea while I'm travelling, or perhaps get another mug. I say that because I didn't realize just how big a litre was and it's rather taller than I expected! Oh well I don't mind lots of tea. I could of course also make tea before I set out or put fruit juice in my flask or something. :) The whole point after all was to get something that I could throw in my bag without having to bother about it leaking. I also got myself some stainless-steel food storage containers with silicone lids. They're stackable in the sense that they fit inside each other. I got a set of 3 and currently have roasted peanuts in the smallest of them. I honestly didn't think the peanuts would fit, but they do just about. Annoyingly I still have the looseleaf tea in a plastic container which in turn is inside a plastic bag, but that's going to change if \I still have any left when I leave my grandparents' place later in the week. I gave the rest of the plastic containers I bought in Helsinki to Nan, who says she doesn't like them for food either because they're so thin so is going to use them for craft supplies. In the same parcel I got a bunch of cotton shopping bags. I took one of them shopping a couple of days before writing this post along with the reuseable bag I got for fruit and vegetables in Helsinki and a paper bag I kept hold of. I managed to fit 3 apples, 3 bananas, 2 potatoes, a pepper and an avocado in the one reuseable bag! Given that the bag is a drawstring thing and not massive, I was surprised that everything fitted and nothing got squashed. I put the fruit and vegetables bag inside the cotton bag I took with me, but also managed to fit a big smoothy drink about the size of a container of soya/almond/oat milk etc, a couple of tins of different kinds of beans, the peanuts and some snacks for the dog Blue. I never give him anything except on the rare occasion, so thought I would get him a little something. I've got 10 of the very good-quality cotton shopping bags. I just have to remember that they're super light, so to either keep the bag on my shoulder or roll it up. We tested out the food storage containers as well, and discovered that they meant what they said about being airtight, because they held water even when we turned them upside down and shook them around. I also sold and sent off my original kitchen scale, so bought the one I wanted to get with the jug that measures liquid as well as solid ingredients. I find it more responsive than the other ones, because it sapeaks and I think displays on-screen the weight somewhat quicker which can only be an improvement. The cool thing is that the scale itself will sort of fit in the jug so I can carry it around. It was amusing when they arrived, because I had the big parcel with the food containers flask and shopping bags and the other parcel with the scale show up at the same time. The delivery drivers literally were at the door together! Oh the flask came with a sort of cleaning sponge thing as well. I got myself a bamboo cutlery set which comes in its own cotton carrying pouch. I guess that's what you could call it. It has a knife, fork, spoon and a reuseable straw with cleaning brush, but for some reason none of the cutlery sets I came across had teaspoons. Strange. Even so though, the cutlery things I do have look to be pretty sturdy. The final thing I managed to get my hands on sadly only on amazon, was a sweet little stainless-steel tea-strainer. I'm loving that thing! I wonder if you can reuse tea leaves actually. I haven't tried, but know some people do that and others find it pretty disgusting. The cup bit where the leaves go is mainly a very fine mesh of stainless-steel and it has 2 handles so it can sit on the cup or perhaps a teapot if I wanted to make tea for several people. It also has a little lid which I've been using as a drip tray at times to avoid apparently ruining the wooden surfaces. It saves using so many teabags if any and maybe it's just me, but I find even if I only use a teaspoon and a half to 2 teaspoons a time, they seem to last forever! I still seem to have a llarge amount of the loosleaf tea I got when I was in Rymattyla! Then again I have also been using teabags while staying with people due to not having a tea-strainer of any sort at the time. The thing I did that I really don't like and was trying to avoid is buying frozen vegetables, especially the kind that you keep in the bag and steam with microwaves. I can't stand plastic around food, especially when it gets blasted with microwaves. Such as it was I found them bland as heck and found the pizza more tasty. There's no point timing anything while I'm here though, because despite my having Nan tell me how long it takes to cook something in the regular over (not microwave) and having her set the said oven, she goes and looks at it and guesses when it's done anyway. I would personally left it in for the full amount since the oven was not preheated, but I guess there's no point telling that to someone who used to be a chef and seems to think they know better than everyone else. Given that they wanted me to buy some of my own food though, I insisted on getting as much of the rest of the food as non-packaged as possible. Sadly that meant avoiding things like the spinach and mushrooms, because apparently there were none in the shop that were not in packaging. The final thing I can think of that I can't remember if I mentioned on my previous post in bamboo cotton buds and a bamboo toothbrush. I've had them for some time now. I like them for being biodegradeable and I find they feel friendlier as well as working better. The bristles of the toothbrush are soft but seem to clean just as well. I use fluoride-free toothpaste when I can, although it is not as effective in the UK as it is in say Finland and Germany, because the British love adding fluoride to the water. I can taste it so if I want to drink water here I either make tea or at least boil it. Annoyingly Nan and Grandad don't have any kind of food-waste facilities or composting places, so it ends up in the standard household bin. I haven't yet managed to find anything to do with the extra clothes I don't really need. I thought there would be loads of charity shops or something around here, but apparently not.