to ask what you're doing to reduce your use of plastics?

[k2p2k2tog]

Lots of coverage on the BBC yesterday about how we used to ship loads of plastics for recycling to China, and China have said they aren't taking it any more.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42455378

Of course recycling is a good thing. But that should come third after reduce and reuse.

Plastics are an environmental nightmare - we can't avoid all plastics but we can certainly reduce what we're using. I've just ordered reusable sandwich wraps for the kids to take to school rather than wrapping in cling film. Little steps. If everyone does a little bit, we can reduce the total amount of plastics.

So what are you doing???

you need one that is open at the bottom, they are surprisingly hard to find

I switched to soap last year as it keeps me fresher. I was inspired by a mn thread. Then I tried solid shampoo and conditioner from lush and I love them.

But I was in the habit of getting a meal deal for lunch quite a bit, so that’s probably a hundred plastic bottles a year. And I use cling film. And buy all sorts of things from the supermarket which come in plastic trays.

Today I did my weekly shop with plastic avoidance in mind. It’s pretty hard to avoid completely if you shop in a supermarket, and do a weekly shop, but I deliberately chose products without single-use plastic trays, or single-use plastic bottles. Milk was the only exception: there wasn’t an alternative. A lot of products have some level of plastic packaging in terms of film or a bag, but I bought much less this week as I was thinking much more about the waste.

Crafty of course we need protective packaging for some consumables,it's the excessive packaging and trying to find ways of replacing products that necessitate using plastic with perfectly good, and often much cheaper alternatives.Like food storage containers rather than plastic bags ,cling film. that have drawn me to this thread.And recently having to adapt to a lower income ,also looking for ways to not waste money.
And as for the warm fuzziness it's more that I've long found the tide of rubbish,largely plastic ,on our roadsides and beaches the stuff of nightmares.It's thoroughly depressing just how throw away our society has become.Any little changes can only help surely.

Ive been using the lush bars since watching blue planet. The shampoo bar is fab (Honey I washed the kids) and you buy a metal tin to store it in which will last for a very long time. The conditioner bar is unfortunately completely rubbish. Nothing comes off it at all however much you rub and it is useless for my long thick hair so I'm still hunting for a good conditioner bar.

So far though thats about 5 plastic bottles not purchased in this house (DC and DH still using up the shampoo they have in the cupboard).

user Have you tried a vinegar rinse? It's really effective. 2 tbsp in a cup of water. Pour it over your hair and rinse. Your hair will smell a bit vinegary when wet but not after you've dried it.

Not since I was 15 pepper but whilst it makes it shine it is the actual conditioning that I need. My hair needs added moisture.

jamesgoldenhand if you like fizzy water, which I do, the Sodastream is brilliant. Otherwise I just use a fridge jug for still tap water. I never buy bottled water. Apart from the unnecessary cost, I don't have to lug it or destroy ye olde planet 🌎

Didn't realise it was for shine as well! It at least seems to make my dry hair feel soft though now I think about it, I'm not sure how!

We make our own shower gel and reuse ketchup bottles to store it, buy food in bulk, and save any bags that had things things like rice or pasta in that can be reused, we use bamboo toothbrushes and I make bread and yoghurt (we had SO many old yoghurt pots lying around). If I'm buying new clothes I try to buy bamboo rather than synthetic stuff. Use soap nuts to wash clothes about half the time, and bulk buy white vinegar instead of fabric softener. Most of our meat comes from a friend up the road so that's package free.

There were other eco reasons for most of the above too, but the main one was reducing packaging. We compost everything too, so we only have half a bin bag of rubbish a week

I looked today to see how much it'd be to have milk delivered in reusable glass bottles but it's 95p a pint and I can't afford that! This year's environmental New Years Resolutions are to pick up plastic every time we go to the beach (we live in Cornwall, so that's often) and to grow our salad, tomatoes and herbs this year to cut down on packaging.

I can't afford to buy stuff from farmers markets, wrapped in brown paper, so I'm stuck with Lidl packaging for dairy, fruit and veg, frozen stuff etc.

I am a smug as fuck greenie about a lot of what we do though

Good for you @billy! I’d be smug too. Genuinely!

we just bought a soda stream a few weeks ago as DH drinks litres of lime and soda. The gas canister refills are more expensive than I had expected (£13.99) but is still works out cheaper than buying soda water by the bottle and is tons better for the environment. Already noticing a difference in how quickly our plastic recycling bin fills up

Ooohh, yes. Love our soda stream too. And I just got a dehydrator to try to dry my own apricots (and jerky for DH) as we go through bags and bags of them and they always come in plastic.

I think it's easy to cut down on packaging if you enjoy cooking and making your own household and personal hygiene products. It's kind of a hobby for us. If you don't like doing that, or you haven't got time, or you cba then it's impossible. Nothing will change until big business sort their shit out, as us little people can't be expected to make all the sacrifices.

I've been thinking of getting a soda stream but I've been unsure because, well does the soda from it taste nice? Tastes will vary but does it compare to bottled soft drinks?

I only use my Sodastream for water, I never use the syrups. Although Heston says that if you put an ordinary bottle of Chardonnay through it, you get champagne! I really must try it. I don't have to buy refills very often but I take the empties back to Argos, maybe every 3 months at most.

Dh says the soda water it makes tastes like the stuff he buys. DS says the Dr Pete's syrup makes an ok replica of Dr peppers, and he's pretty fussy. Is that Chardonnay thing true?????

Don't you end u with lots of unrecyclable CO2 cartridges if you have a soda stream though?

My friend with a soda stream said she hands over the empty cartridges when she buys new ones.

Interesting.

no, you hand over the old one for re-filling at Argos or somewhere when you buy your new one

the gas canisters are refillable.

aren't the original machines very expensive though? and bulky? we only buy the cheapest fizzy spring water, so the only reason to change would be to avoid the plastic wastage.

The initial outlay is high compared to cheap bottled water, can't remember as ours is a good 7-8 years old and was a gift, but it's worth it to save the planet and your aching arms!!

ours was reduced to £60 and it won't take us long to recoup that. Wish we'd done it ages ago. The family behind me at the supermarket on Friday had several multipacks of fizzy water and it was just so much plastic for water! Which you can drink straight from the tap here in Scotland anyway.

We love our soda stream and it paid for itself v quickly. We only use it for water though and sometimes home made lemonade, the syrups are vile.

We never really went for shower gel/liquid handsoap in the first place, it's always been bar, so it's nice to feel ahead of the trend for a change.

We buy a lot of soap while on holiday in France, it's properly lush.

Are the "I don't give a shit" brigade really ok with sights like this? (beach on the Thames in the last few days) Or this? If they're looking at it, as they freely admit, perfectly selfishly, then would they be alright sitting in this amount of rubbish on the beach on their holidays or days out? Doesn't seem logical