How can I go plastic free?

[Starryskiesinthesky]

Or at least try and reduce it? Thinking about Eugenie's wedding and it just seems like everything comes in plastic these days. I had a chinese takeaway last night and it came in plastic tubs. Replacing soap it was in a plastic bottle but even if I bought a bar of soap it comes wrapped in a plastic wrapper.

Online shops also come with bags even when you request no bags.

It just seems very complicated and potentially expensive. Are there ways of making it manageable?

We're lucky because we live in a town with a farmer's market so all our veg comes from a stall and isn't wrapped.

We also use beeswax wraps (which you can make yourself easily...google that) and kids lunches go into bags, wrapped in paper. We buy things in glass or cans but never in plastic. ASide from anything we don't want the chemicals leaking into our food.

I'm a big fan of mesh bags. I use mesh bags for fruit and veg, bread, pastries, loose nuts, loads of things you would use a single-use paper or plastic bag for. They weigh less than a gram so you don't have to faff about subtracting their weight. I must have saved about 400 plastic bags with them by now.

When you get organised enough to remember to take your coffee cup with you every day, you also get organised enough to make your own coffee before you leave the house, and save a fortune.

Even if a bar of soap comes wrapped in plastic the amount of plastic is way less than a shower gel bottle. I am lucky enough to have a soapmaker at the market who cuts big lumps off a huge wheel of soap, so it can be done with no packaging too.

If you have time to spend in the kitchen (and I realise many people don’t) you can eliminate packaging and save a ton of cash at the same time. Those tiny, extortionate tubs of grilled vegetable couscous etc.? Easy to make your own and stick in a glass jar in the fridge. Most leftovers go in glass jars here so I don't use much clingfilm anyway, but wax wraps are a good replacement.

It's so frustrating when the cheapest veg is in plastic

Yes, but think about why that is! The shelf-life increases if its packaged like that. Open veg is more susceptible to damage and goes rotten faster.

I'm also moving over to Natracare sanpro - at a discount in Waitrose and Ocado right now. Organic cotton, no plastic, was talked about and recommended on Woman's Hour last week.

Take your own containers to the supermarket and get the butcher or fishmonger to fill them from the counter rather than buying meat or fish in packaging. Morrison's are good for this.

I'm just finishing my last bit of the clingfilm roll and moving on to foil. Can't see anything that can't be wrapped and stored like that and at least it can go in recycling.

skorpion you shouldn't wrap acidic (or fatty I think) foods in aluminium as it can lead to a transfer of aluminium to the food and put you above the recommended limit. There are known and suspected health implications of too much aluminium.