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???

stepaway, please can you tell us mor about the lettuce and other stuff?

Nothing.

Europe is much more environmentally friendly than the rest of the world, countries like Finland, Sweden and Denmark are top, the UK is around 12th I think, compared to places like America, China, India, Brazil, which are way down the list. So we're obviously doing something right, although there's always room for improvement.

Well with the lettuce resources are used in planting it, growing it, harvesting it, wrapping it, maintaining it at the right temperature and transporting it. So you are using water, fertilisers maybe, electricity, fuel and often they are not grown in uk - especially at this time of year so transported around the world. Then we buy. Leave in fridge. Pay attention to the date on the package and bin it if we haven't used it. Complete waste of resources.

You didn't seriously do that as a matter of course in the first place did You?!
I do that, for school and work NewYearNiki, so what? Care to try being ruder and more patronising?

Our council has recently changed waste people and moved over to wheelie bins for recycling..All good, but the new scheme means we cant recycle 'flyaway plastic' anymore. ie loose plastic packaging and especially all the bags that come from online shopping. It's all going in landfill now.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad for the enviroment now

I find thinking about this hugely stressful because everything I buy seems to come wrapped in plastic (recyclable). Our recycling bin is full every week whereas our landfill bin has a tiny amount in it.

I don't want to buy loose cheese/vegetables as they're MORE expensive where I am (posh greengrocers/butchers/cheese monger all more expensive than M and S prepackaged).

It's £6 for 500 grams of cheddar in M and S - 2 plastic packets of cheese

It's £18 for the same amount in a paper wrap at the cheese monger

It's not happening, not rich enough for eighteen quid cheddar

Thank you very much for that info stepawayfromGoogle

I won't feel so bad then since I never throw away any food

It's not that plastic is easier to recycle than cardboard but that over the whole lifecycle different materials have a greater or lesser overall effect on the environment.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that everyone is trying to do their bit, but it's not the case that plastic is always bad. I work in the industry and trust me, we're on it!

Good thread, OP! I was thinking about this the other day.

This isn't something people could do directly, but I was wondering if supermarkets could start issuing fabric bags (and charge, say, between £1 to £3 per bag) instead of plastic bags, so plastic bags would be totally phased out. And we could have, say, the same bag for meat and fish that we use all the time, and a separate one for fruit and veg. And maybe supermarkets could pack meat/fish in cardboard or reinforced paper rather than plastic.

And cafes should look into using recyclable coffee cups or making coffee cups out of paper or cardboard rather than plastic.

What do you all think? The whole plastic thing is really worrying!

Yes step away I think the thing is I do have a really simplified view of it all. I do think of plastic as being the worst and then you chuck out your glass and tins and I suppose you have to think about the costs and pollution involved in the recycling process. Food wastage is a big problem too - I think I read somewhere that one supermarket is doing away with the best before date which hopefully will lead to people using up more stuff. It's really tough to know what to do for best. On the one hand I'd love to say I'd commit to shampoo bars but on the other hand my nearest lush is 30 miles away and to order online...well it's just more packaging and adding to the carbon footprint.

It'd be nice to have some sort of government guidelines to know what we should be doing, maybe more things like the plastic bag tax etc. I hold my hands up and say I'm quite naive about it all but at least I'm trying.

I think the point is that everyone can make a small change or two which suits them - if you really do prefer shower gel to soap then look for another way to cut your plastic usage.

I also don't think all plastics are bad - I have a reusable coffee cup which is plastic, it's been used at least 50 times and is still in great shape. Potentially will be used upwards of 500 times - far better than 500 separate disposable cups. The reusable sandwich bags I've bought (Lakeland) are also plastic but sturdy enough for washing and using hundreds of times.

It's the disposable, single-use plastics which are the issue. And plastics like cling film which can't be easily recycled.

Cloth nappies
Reusable bottles for everyone
Try and buy non-packaged foods

It's hard though when evvvvverything is packaged in plastic!! Good thread.

I have metal straws at home, that I love (especially as you can put them in the freezer, great in summer)

Also refuse straws in bars etc

Small changes I know, but better than nothing.

I lived in Germany in the 90s. Fizzy drinks like Coca Cola/Fanta were sold in really thick plastic bottles which you then returned to a machine in the supermarket and it printed you out a voucher to the value of the deposit on however many bottles you'd returned. You'd then use the voucher at the checkout to reduce the cost of your shopping. The bottles were then washed and reused. It seemed like such a good system that I don't understand how decades later Coca Cola are still producing over 110 billion throwaway bottles each year.

Stepaway do you know why this system isn't universally used?

Why is it impossible to find glass baby bottles in this country? (England).
The sheer amount of plastic bottles ending up in the landfills is not great either, and I didn't like the idea to adding plastic to my baby formula. I bought all my bottles whilst on holiday.
Maybe glass is just as bad as plastic? But at least you can give bottles away and they can be more easily reused.

Firms like amazon could ease up on the packaging. It's a recurrent joke to receive a toothbrush in a box 2m x 2m, but it's not really that funny.

It is interesting that the focus on plastics might be distracting us from other more important issues. That fact about lettuces is pretty shocking. I've just thrown away some leftover coleslaw from a party at the weekend - I should have tried harder to eat it before it went off (it was off - I tasted it before throwing it away).
What I already do in terms of waste reduction:

• Always use a resuable water bottle. I very very rarely buy bottled water out, only if it comes as the drink in a children's lunch box deal
• Cloth nappies. Used from about 6wks to 2yrs with DS, planning to use from birth with number 2.
• Cloth wipes for hands and faces.
• Use bar soap for washing. I still have liquid soap by all the sinks for though.
• Swapped toothpaste to one without microbeads.
• Have bought but not used yet: reusable cup for hot drinks, beeswax food wraps, stainless steel straws

What I plan to do next:

• Buy cloth hankies for myself. DH and DS already use them but I don't have any.
• Keep better track of food in the fridge so we don't waste as much.

You can find Nuk glass baby bottles at Argos and on Amazon. Not hard at all to find in the UK and our kids used them.

May I also recommend Cheeky Wipes to all parents of kids in nappies? One of my best discoveries.

I put all my used plastic in my recycling bin.

Sorted....

I am going to stop buying all the stuff packaged in cheap plastic....which we import from China.

I just don't understand why you can't buy glass bottles in local supermarkets.

I’m not doing anything to reduce the use of plastic.

I recycle and reuse as much as possible. Re-use cling film and tin foil. Reuse yoghurt pots and milk containers for food and grain storage. Take my own bags for shopping. A local farm asked us for food waste for compost in exchange for leftover eggs, so they come to collect it once a week & we get their eggs. The cartons go back with them.

@Sunnysidegold, a lot of soap making cottage industries are pretty much plastic-free and often deliver soap in non-plastic packaging!