To want zero waste/ less package food stores to catch on?

[Bambambini]

I just find the amount of waste we all produce really depressing. Or I did when I was much younger and idealistic. I think now I've just more or less accepted we are selfish, wasteful and doomed and ruining the planet and have been sticking my head more or less in the sand these last years. The amount of plastic shit is just too depressing and where do you even start to deal with it.

That folk are reusing their own bags a lot now is a slight step forward. When I go to the supermarket I try and buy stuff with less packaging but it's hard to escape. Just been reading on these zero waste shops that are popping up. Wish there was one near where I live.

So AIBU to think this is a step in the right direction and we should encourage these stores - would you use them?

Absolutely agree on far, far too much packaging waste. I'm trying to reduce wherever possible but it's hard. At our last house we lived near a food co-op with the bins for dried beans/ pulses etc so you just scooped into a paper bag. Sadly we're relying on Waitrose & Sainsbury now. It annoys me just how much packaging is on the Waitrose Organic range in particular. I suppose they have stop it getting mixed up with the other food though.

Did anyone see the recent BBC Back in time for Dinner show where they er, went back in time for dinner to recent decades, and showed that in the 1970s frozen items were actually sold LOOSE in the freezer bins and you just scooped up as much as you wanted. We really need to go back to that. Its a great idea.

I used to use a shop just like the German one when I was first married - in 1970 in West Bromwich..! It had huge bins full of all kinds of food (e.g. pulses, rice, cornflakes, flour, sugar, dried pasta etc) each with a lift-up lid and a big scoop that you used to fill plastic bags with the amount that you wanted - weighing it on the scales provided. You then took everything to the counter where it was weighed as it was put through the cash register and you paid.... Nothing new under the sun

this is my one problem with Aldi - no loose fruit and veg except the occasional banana. I do try very hard for zero food waste, and our landfill bin has two kitchen-bin bags in it this fortnight. But we are still filling a recycling crate each fortnight.

and that's with maximum use of reusable plastic containers for leftovers, freezables, home made dips etc; they go through the dishwasher and seem to last about a year.

How do you brand loose food in containers and what about people's hands in the bins?

The Rubbish Diet is a great way to check you are recycling everything you can where you live and has great tips on shopping naked - so you bring less packaging home. www.therubbishdiet.org.uk

I also hate internet food shopping as they use about a hundred carrier bags with about 3 items in each.

Where do you shop? Tesco let you opt for no plastic bags so everything is just in crates and you can decant them into your own bags, or straight into your kitchen if you get it delivered.

I do internet shopping but I keep the bags and give them back to them the following week, possibly using one or two as bin liners along the way.

I have a book called Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson, it might give some of you some ideas.

It takes dedication to really minimise your waste to one small bin a year though - how do you avoid stuff like leaflets through the door or letters from your bank with new terms and conditions? What do people do with stuff like cotton wool buds? Dental floss? Toothpaste tubes? You can opt for online bills and statements etc but someone always wants to write to you (with all your account and personal info plastered across the letter so you have to shred it, why can't they just write "Dear Customer"?) And plastic around brochures etc rather than paper envelopes that can go into the recycling.

As for food waste, I am sure we have overly short use-by dates on our perishables. When I visit friends in Germany the use-by dates on things like yogurts are much longer.

Paper in the post I'm fine with because it gets shredded, used for bedding for the hens, into the compost bin then onto the veg/flower beds, so I get less frustrated by that. Glossy catalogues, envelopes and flyers I cant do that with and they annoy me. Also there are unavoidable things like medicine bottles etc. Id love to at least half my rubbish though, less of the superfluous stuff