Eco-friendly is not female-friendly

Forgive me, Greta, for I have sinned. It has been five days since my last Waitrose order. I meant to be good and green. To go from Whole Foods to farmers’ market with my canvas bag and eco-conscience. But it was cold and dark and the boys from the supermarket come right to the door. So I filled the bin with plastic wrappers and turtle-trappers and laid waste to my good intentions.

I try, I really do. I wash every yoghurt pot, rinse every tin. I carry a KeepCup, a water flask, a folded tote. I trudge to the Edgware Road with empty bottles for shampoo, conditioner and laundry soap and fill them up, one splurting pump at a time. I take off my make-up with washable pads. I reuse envelopes, salvage rags, turn the bed sheets sides-to-middle. I save every cabbage leaf, every fennel frond, every parsley stalk for vegetable stock. I am doing my bit. I am going half-mad in the process.

It was scrubbing muddy spuds, hands raw under cold water, that drove me back to the online shop. This was not the future I imagined when I graduated university ten years ago: red fingers, planetary anxiety and one-hundred-and-one-ways with winter roots. It’s all very well this buy-local, eat-seasonal, cook-from-scratch and leave-no-turnip-top-behind business, but it takes its toll in time and energy. As for reusable, refillable, zero-waste shopping… it really is a faff-and-a-half. And I’m a freelancer, in a double-income-no-kids household. What’s the commuting single mum with a massive mortgage supposed to do? I can, grudgingly, choose to pay double to buy my fruit and vegetables loose, but if I were on a budget, feeding a family, counting every pantry penny, I’d buy my satsumas cheaper by far by the bag. Supermarket checkout banners boast of green initiatives, while passing on the cost — and the packaging — to customers.