Paper or plastic

In the last two weeks, I have faced a few adventures in plastic free shopping.

First, the victories:

- the organic fruit and veg delivery service I use (https://eng-slowbox.imweb.me/) is now complete with a fully plastic free option. Here is my box from them this week.

The box is folded together on the bottom with a newspaper layer and taped shut with one piece of paper tape on the top.

- purchased bread, honey, and tea without plastic

- a friend gave me a usb stick she had lying around her house.

- have been going to BEXCO events - YOLO life festival and Busan Cafe Show - the last two weekends. By registering in advance, I got into one event for free and the coffee event for only 3000won. I potted this little plant by registering for a class on the YOLO life festival event page.

I got my photo taken at this little photo booth that was at both events. It's run by cityhall_studio (시청앞사진관) if you want to see some of their work on instagram.

And now for the less than glamorous - the challenges

- buying things without plastic is hard. It's hard to find things to eat while I'm out and about. I'm having to think more about what and where I eat and drink. Planning my life better is actually proving to be a bit tough on the wallet since I now need to sit and eat or drink in a restaurant instead of buying a quick coke and bag of chips.

- looking at the amount of plastic I do have in my home that I want to eat up, use, not have anymore - it's disheartening.

- coffee. all the roasters at the expo today were selling products in plastic. ONE group had single use drip bags that were all paper, wrapped in paper packaging, and sold in recycled pulp boxes. Their beans were still sold in plastic bags. I'm still ok for another week or so, but  after that it is likely to be challenging.

- someone asked me if I'd be saving money doing this. This week, I did not. Feeling good about the self not using plastic and fresh off a victory of getting my produce delivered sans plastic I purchased a big ticket item: a really beautiful cherry cutting board from a small shop/artist in the Pyeongchan area from a tree she cut down herself. I bought a glorious loaf of cheese ciabatta as well today. Last week I bought honey from a vendor and cherry blossom tea from another vendor. There is also the sit down and eat/drink thing. Instead of going home or grabbing a to-go bite or coffee, I ate a proper meal with a friend. (I don't regret the time spent with friend, not a minute.)

-forgot my charger cable in the car. Had to accept that my battery might die while I was out and accept it as my own fault and a mistake. Luckily, my friend had a spare cable that she let me use for a bit so I was good :)

going forward
- continue to find opportunities to go sans plastic and be polite about it.
- find a balance of my values and what I enjoy using my time and energy doing. This is really noticeable in the time vs money vs non-plastic dilemmas that I am beginning to see more of in my life.
- do I accept free items that are plastic? I am right now since my rule is about not buying plastic. I accepted a few gift bags/swag bags at events that were outright plastic or contained plastic things in them. I kept one bag to use as a lunch bag, and gave the other things away. For now, this follows my rules and I am ok with this.