Is it me or were we more enviromentally friendly in the 80's (and before)

[NaughtToThreeSadOnions]

( Delibrately put in chat rather than AIBU) sort of inspired by the stop flying thread but other threads in resent weeks i've kindcof been thinking this the last while.

When i was growing up we had milk in glass bottles that we had to wash and return to be reused delivered by local milkman in an electric cart. Yes we can now get milk and more but very very few people do use this service mostly its the dreaded plastic bottle from the supermarket.

We certuanly had the pop man (ok i think that was fairly rare in the 80's but maybe not in the 70's) who'd gove ypu a percentage back for returning the glass bottle rather than the big plastic bottles from the supermarket

Talking of supermarkets, i don't really remember plastic bags we used to put every thing back in our trolley and pack it in cardboard boxes at the packing self in finefare anyway. Me and my brother always used to race to the box pile to find the suitable box. See the lidl/aldi style is nothing new is it. That was kust going to the supermarket people have just forgotten because we got used to being given handfulls of plastic bags at the checkout.

I remember my respite career taking fabric shopping bags with her that were kept by the front door. So did my nan so that might have been old fashioned then but i'm sure they weren't the only ones to do it.

Meat was more expensive and you generally shopped at the local butchers.

Holidays at the old beach holday resorts were just as accptable as a holiday, i spent most of my childhood blackpool, scarborough, and mainly cornwall, so did tje majority of my friends. Going abroad was posh and a treat. Flying was pretty expensive.

I remember the excitement that ketchup/mayo/salad cream came in squeezy plastic bottles rather than glass ones that you had to hit to get the source out. But how much is that comtrubuting ti the plastic crisis.

When did paper straws go out of fashion i remember them loads when i was a kid. But just talkinf to people about mcdonalds introducing them some people were confused how they'd even work. That said we did use trillions of those tiny thin blue ones that came with the school milk (how many of those are floating around our oceans now) but the school milk came in tiny little glass bottles

I'm not trying to preach i'm far far far from perfect. Just its occured to me all these oh we need more liquids in glass bottles i'm really not tuat old and i remember them pretty much all being. The shop local again we were more reliant ob our local shops and less reliant on plastic packaging where/when did it change so much.

I also remember the go green movement of the late 80's i had a big book of being green fir kids or something in 89 ish. It just strikes me that we were actually living what would be considered quite 'eco' these days back in the 80's

I'm only 38 and I remember most of this stuff!!! The boxes from the supermarket in particular. We were allowed to play with them after the shopping had been unpacked and had great fun in picking out the best ones at the supermarket!

Yup I tottaly agree ... The worst part is we know the dangers of microfibers now but chose to Egnore it

Things were repaired not replaced. Toasters and kettles could have the element repaired or replaced. Now we throw them away and buy a new one not just when they break but when we change our colour scheme.

This got me thinking - we have a toaster that we've just repaired for the third time. We keep repairing it because it was a really expensive toaster and I resent the idea of throwing it away.

Back in the 80s stuff was more expensive. It wasn't made in China by people earning 5p an hour. It was more cost effective to repair stuff.

I wonder what will happen once the world runs out of cheap labour to build stuff at a low cost. Will we finally go back to repairing stuff rather than replacing it?

The U.K. had a much lower human population, so less pollution. Far few vehicles on the roads. There was probably more pollution due to coal being used for electricity production and heavy industry, like British Steel.

There was not so much plastic crap to buy that gets dumped, the move to China of so much industry had created this. Also clothes were more expensive and better quality, no one expected to buy an entire outfit for £20 and dump it the next day.

Yes, though I'm a child of the 90s, was just thinking today that all the fresh produce I'd bough from Tesco's was wrapped in plastic. We used to live in a northern market town with an extensive market, corner shops where things were measured into paper bags. I remember the milk man and the 'pop man'. Though glad we got rid of all the polystyrene in the fast food joints.

@Hollowtalk I always say that about drinks .We must have been severely dehydrated in the 70's and 80's.I only remember having a cup of tea for breakfast and going off to school with a packed lunch.For the life of me I cannot remember having a drink.I think we must have just stuck our heads under the tap at school.We came home in the evenings and had milk with our dinner. We only got fizzy drinks at Christmas.Now when one walks down the street everyone is slurping on something or other .i really think it is one of the biggest reasons also for the increase in people being overweight/obese and of course the massive damage to the environment with the increase in plastic bottles.I do live in Germany though where we can buy crates of glass bottles which are bright back to the shops and recycled.I refuse to buy drinks in plastic bottles anymore.

... Also my mum certainly never used to wash our clothes after every single wear back in the 70s. More like once or twice a month per item if we were lucky.

And even when I was a teen, I only showered twice a week.

I realise this may be triggering for many MNers.

I agree to an extent but I grew up in London in the 80's. It stank, there was litter everywhere and no one cared. The Thames was dirty, the air was dirty and you could taste the fumes, the streets were dirty and the parks were full of rubbish. I think London is a lot cleaner now than it was in 80's.

puppy definitely re showering. I'm not a stinky hippy by any means but the number of people washing clothes every wear, bedsheets twice or more a week, pyjamas every day, shower twice a day...it seems so neurotic and wasteful.

Yes to bottles of water! When did that start. Tea with breakfast, had water fountains at school. Tea when we got home and fizzy pop on Fridays.
I remember my Mum’s trolley on wheels God I hated it having to pull it home from the shop. It was that or stay at home and do the polishing. Me and my sister used to swap, but I hated that trolley.

Bath once a week in a tin bath shared water with my sister too.
So much consumerism now, I don’t think I’ve seen my granddaughter in the same coat twice.

@LinoleumBlownapart Very true .I lived in Dublin in the late 80's ,early 90's and after a day in town we all had black snot and a greasy film of black gunge on our faces in the winter.All the coal fires and the buses and cars burning oil. Litter was everywhere also.

I'monly38 and I remember most of this stuff!!!

Same age as me.

I honestly didn't think of half this stuff when i started this thread but i'm reading it going bloody hell yes, we did that too.

Although i've spent most of the time going yes and the altertive was posh
Flying for holiday - posh
Going out for coffee/starbucks - posh
Handwash in a,pumpy thing -posh

Of course what a child means by posh is things parents say no to cos its too expensive.

Crisps either came in a multi pack for your linch box or the pub - pub treat with a glass bottle of cola

Things that are so common place now.

I cannot remember having a drink.I think we must have just stuck our heads under the tap atschool

Oh i should have mentioned this, many schools ask for water bottles now we had a flask of squash for lunch time the rest of the time we stuck our heads under the tap i remember the queue for tje taps when we came in from play in the summer. Wecame home in the evenings and had milk with our dinner milk or squash - hot chocolate at nans in tje holidays for a treat We only got fizzy drinks atChristmas yes from the pop man!! I rememember the excitement of when the orderform came through the door!

Disposable clothes and shoes are my real bugbear. It’s nigh on impossible to buy decent quality shoes, that won’t fall apart in 5 minutes. I prefer to pay for decent quality, and have fewer pairs of shoes than a hundred pairs of cheap and nasty

I recently started buying bar soap again! Lasts so much longer than liquid handwash and I'm on a tight budget.

I grew up on the 80s and also remember a lot that's been mentioned.

Things were made to last. Clothes, electricals, and if they broke they got fixed not thrown. My mum used a shopping trolley, we shopped locally on foot. I still do because I don't drive and now have my own trolley!

I did drink a lot of water but my parents were into being healthy and hydrated. We had flasks for drinks.

It was a thing at some point, I think late 80s, at my school to have these colourful (animals, princesses, action figures, etc) reusable water bottles, many with a straw attached as part of the bottle. Plastic, I think, but kept and reused. Anyone else remember these?

It varies according to what you mean by “environmentally friendly”. We’re not casually spraying CFCs into the air, we’re not burning such huge quantities of coal in UK power stations, and McDonalds burgers don’t come in expanded polystyrene containers any more. And people worldwide had far more children per couple than they do now (although of course there are far more couples to have children now).

OTOH ordinary people flying to Dubai for a bit of fully air conditioned winter sun was not a feature of everyday life in the eighties.

Two (or more) car families were much less common. My mum got her first car in the mid-80s; until then my dad took the “family” car to work while she walked everywhere with us 3 children. If she needed the car for shopping or whatever, she had to drive my dad to work. It was the same with lots of my school friends’ families.

I do miss glass milk bottles delivered to the door. The cream used to rise to the top and my brothers and I would fight over who got it in their cereal each morning.

I’m only 40. I feel too young to be reminiscing about the “good old days”!

We buy good quality products and when they break my husband watches YouTube tutorials and fixes them himself. The Dualit toaster is nearly twenty years old and he mended it. He's also mended the KitchenAid and Dyson. We'd rather buy better quality and hopefully have it for as long as possible.

My mum was forever up and down the road to the shops with her trolley on wheels! It was a wicker basket type and made a right racket going along! We would help her pick out the fruit and veg and it would be in paper bags. Also meat from butchers wrapped in paper

The 80s were definitely a change in personal consumption. Disposable stuff was cool. Nobody wanted a Thermos flask and sweaty sandwiches, people wanted a plastic bottle of branded drink and M&S prawn sandwiches in plastic packaging.
People had more money but less time and credit was easy to come by.

My mum still has her milk delivered in glass bottles but it's more expensive. If it were cheaper or same price as the plastic bottles perhaps everyone would go back to having a milkman.

@Housewife2010

Your husband is a dying breed. You need to get him cloned.

They should be teaching life skills in school, how to repair things etc

I think it was easier to live in a less wasteful way in the past.

There were far more water fountains in public places when I was a child (I'm 56). I remember my sibs and I always drank from the water fountains so no need to carry bottles around. We never ever bought lunch, always took sandwiches with us (in Tupperware though).

No Starbucks etc though there were tea rooms where you went in, sat down and had a pot of tea. My mum did not approve of pop so we never had it and as an adult I have never acquired the taste for it. I drink water and brought my DC up to do the same. Only one of my now adult DC drinks pop - he's the one with the fillings.

No fast food apart from fish and chips.

We had chickens so no food waste ever (chickens will eat anything and used to love boiled veg peelings) and my parents grew all their own fruit and veg, though I can remember getting really fed up with the same things day after day when we had a glut (round leafed lettuce and tomatoes I'm looking at you). Cakes were a rare treat and made at home.

My dad could repair most things and has taught me some useful handyman skills which I still use. I've always been a bit make do and mend and can do most simple repairs and decorating. I no longer make clothes as it has become so expensive, but I definitely repair things, let hems down, sew buttons on etc

I used to cycle 8 miles each way at the weekends to see my best friend. No way I'd do that now with all the lorries.

We weren't poor, but we certainly weren't well off, but everyone was the same and we had no interest in "stuff". My DC are not as handy as I am, although I try, but thankfully none of them are into acquiring stuff or into designer crap.

I'm consciously trying to move back towards a simpler, low consumption life now. More walking, less buying, take a flask, no flying (not a loss, I hate airports). I've switched to making my own household cleaners to expose us to fewer chemicals and found it very easy and much better smelling - I scent them with a few drops of mint, rosemary and/or clary sage essential oil. Can't quite bear to part with bleach for the loo though.

I only buy bar soap now and have told DH no more shower gel
I would much rather drink a coke from a glass bottle but the price why is a glass bottle so much more expensive than a plastic one? Crazy.

I remember when Nespresso machines came out I thought that they were very wasteful. Also when I went to the States in the early 90s and first saw plastic applicator Tampax they seemed so unnecessary from a resources perspective. On the plus side, I used to be such an avid reader of newspapers and magazines and now with the internet I tend to buy very few and read more online ( which is why so many women's magazines are closing down).