Plastic-Free for One Week (Japan Edition)

After being on my zero waste journey for 5 months now, I decided to go one week plastic-free. Let me tell you, it was hard! Japan is not the most zero-waste friendly country, not one bit.

With my husband out of town for the week, it was the perfect opportunity for me to eliminate my plastic consumption. I was responsible for 100% of the goods coming into my home, and only my 10 month old and I would be consuming them.

My rules:

No buying anything that comes in plastic packaging. I won’t purchase any products made of plastic. Anything that I already had in my house that was wrapped in plastic was fair game. I still tried to avoid that food for the most part, but you’ll still see cheese and milk (damn that plastic spout!) come up in my meal log.

I’ll cover each day’s sustainability wins and losses. I also have some plastic-free tips to help you out, no matter where you live!

Day 1:

Grocery shopping at the commissary on base was how I started my week. I scored a good bit of produce to get my week started. However, much of the unbagged produce is imported from other countries, so it’s not nearly as fresh as it would be shopping off base. I try to keep my food miles to a minimum, but for the sake of plastic-free shopping I went ahead and bought the produce anyways.

I also bought some organic flour. My loaf of Rudi’s bread would run out before long. Maybe finally trying my hand at baking bread is in the cards. I can do this. It’s only 7 days.

I also attended a kids birthday party, where I remembered to bring my own silverware and my mason jar of water. Most of the food was finger foods so I didn’t need my silverware, but I was grateful to have my jar of water along to avoid single use water bottles.

Day 2:

I hadn’t been to the farmer’s market in a long time, and couldn’t remember what the produce looked like. If it wasn’t wrapped in plastic, this would be the perfect place for me to stock up! Guess what? Every single produce item was wrapped in plastic! The only non-offender was the heads of cabbage, which still had one plastic strip all the way around, holding the leaves on.

I was disappointed, but not really surprised. That’s Japan for you. I opted for a pack of lettuce seeds. I’ve been wanting to try planting some lettuce in my apartment window and now I’m one step closer to doing so.

Day 3:

This day presented a little more of a challenge for me. We planned to go into Tokyo for the day with a couple friends. I packed a little zero waste travel bag and even printed off a piece of paper with some Japanese phrases written on it (Can I use my own container? I’m trying to avoid plastic.) I got these handy dandy phrases from a Tokyo blogger and since I don’t know much Japanese, I could show somebody the piece of paper if I’m in a pinch. I didn’t end up needing to use it, but better safe than sorry.

I did incur plastic in a few places. Although TGI Fridays was straw-free, they did give us plastic utensils (wrapped in more plastic) for the babies. They also brought my daughter’s water cup with a plastic lid on top. A paper straw, but a plastic lid.

It was a little bit exhilarating to be prepared to combat those plastic utensils they brought out. I was so excited to use my metal fork! However, once we had that plastic lid at our table, it was already ours. That was my big plastic fail for the day.

The other bit of plastic I did purchase was on a new pair of sunglasses I needed. I’ll have these sunglasses for a long time, and most of the frame is metal, so I let it slide.

Lastly, we stopped by Cookie Time, a famous cookie bar in Harajuku. I almost got a milkshake but then realized it came with a huge plastic straw. Close call! I opted for ice cream sandwiched in between two cookies. It came in a paper box and was the perfect choice for me.

Day 4:

When I spend my day at home, it’s so much easier to remain plastic free. I ran out to grab some produce, taking lots of individual produce bags for each of my different fruits and veggies.

Organic produce is always my first choice when it’s available, but I didn’t get to buy any today. It was all wrapped in plastic.

A few weeks ago I had some of them mixed, and the cashier separated them and rebagged them in plastic for me. I’m sure she had all the best intentions, but still! I definitely make sure to separate them into their own individual bags now.

We ran out of bread. It’s time for me to try my hand at baking bread! I didn’t go into this with very high expectations. I watched my mom bake bread before growing up, but never did the process myself start to finish.

The recipe my mom had given me called for whole wheat flour instead of white, which is all I had on hand. The dough seemed WAY too sticky and wet, and I was convinced I’d ruined it. Not to mention it called for 6 c. of flour–this was going to be such a waste of food if it was a bust! I just kept tossing handful after handful of flour in, until it resembled dough. SURPRISE! It turned out really good! This was a huge win for me!

I’m still working on how to store the bread plastic free. For now, I have it wrapped in fabric in the cupboard. It’s working fine except for one flaw–the open side of the loaf gets crusty and I have to cut it off before slicing a fresh piece. I’ll figure out a better way to store it before long, hopefully!

I tried a few different freezer storage options for my 3 remaining loaves. Wrapping one in two kitchen towels was one suggestion I came across online. Another idea was to slice a loaf and put it in a large Tupperware container. Lastly I put my last loaf in a ratty Ziploc bag I’ve been washing and reusing until its lifespan is over. We’ll see what works out best.

I’ve been eating SO MUCH BREAD since I baked my own. It’s great! It was only 5 ingredients, I used organic flour, and it cost about the same to bake 4 loaves as it does to buy one! Yes, yes, yes! (Can you tell how excited this bread makes me?)

Day 5:

I hosted book club for a group of ladies in the evening. Usually I’d reach for a box mix of Ghiradelli brownies or a premade tube of cookie dough. Both of these options had plastic packaging, so I decided to make my own cookies.

This route made me nervous because a) this was going to be the largest book club I’d ever hosted (9 women strong) and b) I always seem to mess cookies up. I know, I know, they’re just cookies. But somehow I always manage to overcook them, add too much salt to sugar cookies, or forget some key ingredient. I’ve just had bad luck with cookie baking.

With my daughter napping and no time to run out to the store to scope out other options, cookie baking it is. I painstakingly followed a recipe (check my meal log for the link), triple checked the amounts of ingredients to add, and pulled those bad boys out of the oven a minute or two early.

Sustainability win! Out of 36 cookies, all but four cookies got eaten that night. Each day that goes by where I successfully try a new recipe, I gain a little more self-confidence in my kitchen abilities.

Day 6:

I woke up to a dark and gloomy day outside, with the rhythmic sound of raindrops beating against the windows. I definitely wasn’t stepping foot outside today. Going to the city earlier in the week messed up my daughter’s nap schedule a bit, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend the day inside and get our routine back to normal.

By the time dinnertime rolled around, I was craving tacos. I ran out of tortillas earlier in the week. This is another food item that always comes wrapped in plastic. I never can resist buying them but still feel a pang of guilt as I toss them in my cart.

For the first time ever, I tried making my own. I found a super simple recipe on a fellow zero waste bloggers site and gave it a go. It was surprisingly easy. I ended up making 15 tortillas, and froze half for future use. My daughter loved them! She doesn’t care for the store bought ones.

This was another big sustainability win for me. I don’t think I’ll ever buy flour tortillas again. Plus, anything that freezes well is near and dear to my heart. I like being able to make things in bulk and not have to make them again for a long time.

Day 7:

My plastic-free week drew to an uneventful close. I went out for ramen and thrift store shopping with a friend. I’m familiar with this ramen restaurant and knew I wouldn’t incur any plastic there. We also went to a thrift store where I didn’t end up buying anything. I did have my reusable bag along just in case!

In the evening I thought I’d try my hand at some DIY mascara and eyeliner I found on the Going Zero Waste blog. (Check out my list of my favorite zero waste bloggers here).

Although I wouldn’t classify it as a failure, it’s not my greatest success story of the week either. Although the eyeliner worked just fine, the mascara was too powdery and left sprinkles of black specks under my eyes. It did take me a few times to figure out how to get the eyeliner on my eyes, so I just need to experiment some more with the mascara too.

My Key Tips & Takeaways:

• Often have to sacrifice eating organic for living plastic free
• May have to sacrifice “food miles” (how far food has traveled to reach my shopping basket) for plastic free produce
• Preparation is key when you’re out to eat or sightseeing
• Knowing a few “plastic-avoidance” phrases is essential when you don’t know the local language
• Making just a couple items from scratch helps the environment big time

Reflecting back on my week…

What I really want to stress is that if I can do it, you can do it. I encourage anybody reading this to try and live just for one week plastic-free, even just to raise your own awareness of how much plastic you use.

Plastic consumption exists in places I never thought of before. I found new ways to avoid plastic that take next to no added effort from myself, yet still make a big difference.

Lots of small changes from lots of people make a huge impact. I’m confident that through all of our combined efforts, we can help save the planet. Together, we are the change our earth needs.