To be horrified at how much waste we produce but think food producers are to blame?

[malificent7]

Dp, dd and I live here ft. Dsd lives here pt. Our bins were collected on Wednesday and already on Sunday the recycling and wheelie bin are full again.
Main culprits are bulky plastic milk containers, things like mushroom cartons, pepsi/ fizzy water bottles..cardboard packaging etc.

However, the council only collect wheelie bins every 3 weeks. I think the reasoning behind this is that peopke will ve forced to recycle more. Great in theory. In practice many things can't be recycled.
Really i think food companies need to think of alternative ways of packaging food...quite what i don't know.

Could you crush the milk cartons smaller and break up the cardboard?

Plastic-wrapped cucumber does help it last considerably longer so in a way saves waste. We've been getting an oddbox delivery which uses up surplus/odd shaped fruit and veg and is generally not packaged (unless it arrives with them in packaging or is needed to stop the fruit and vegetables getting damaged).

Squash the bottles flat before putting in the bin (squash with the lid off then put it back on when flat to stop them reinflating). For things like mushroom containers and yogurt pots where you might have several of the same size container - collect them up and stack them inside each other before putting in the bin.

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

I’d love to rate companies according to their waste - step forward Danone, who package their activia yogurts in a completely unnecessary cardboard wrapper. If I do a f2f shop I leave all surplus packaging at the till - harder if it’s an online delivery.

Surely all that achieves is making things harder for the staff working in the till?

My pet hate is stuff that could be recycled if it didn't have non recyclable material virtually welded to it. Cauldron tofu for example, the plastic tray can be recycled but the film covering it can't, and it's near impossible to remove all of the film from the tray. Same with takeaway sandwiches, the cardboard can be recycled but every inch of it is coated in a non recyclable plastic film that just can't be removed. I don't buy supermarket sandwiches very often but I eat a lot of tofu and it's very annoying.

The frustrating thing is that it's so much more expensive to do it the eco friendly way. The conditioner above for example, I got it on offer for £25, whereas to refill a 5 litre bottle at one of the refill shops would cost me about £60. Milk we use a lot for DS; four pints costs me £1.09 from Aldi, and our local milkman is 70p a pint, costing me more than double what I'd pay ordinarily. The same for things like fabric conditioner, there's a door stop refillery here but they charge £4 per litre, whereas I buy two 5 litre bottles for around £10 in Costco.

I feel the same. We have an eco refill shop in the next town to us but hand wash (take your own bottle and refill) was more than double the price of going to wilkos/supermarket and rice and cereal (fill your own container) were 4 x the price! I like the principle of it but it would be so much more expensive to regularly shop there (and pay for parking nearby)
We do have milk delivered in glass bottles but it is more expensive and does go off more quickly. I often shop at Aldi and they barely have any loose fruit and veg.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

Just been to Scotland. They don’t seem bothered about recycling like Wales. Shocking.

That's a bit of a generalisation, Scotland's a big place!

My family in Scotland each have FOUR wheelie bins, 3 for recycling and one for general waste.

Just 'like Wales' every council is different.

Also a while ago I started using bars of soap instead of handwash to reduce plastic but it made the basin and shower so scummy and harder to clean and I felt it was more likely to cause blockages. Apparently the answer is to buy "better quality" aka more expensive soap for about £5/bar! I'm afraid I've gone back to handwash but I do buy the refills.

I know this won't be an option for everyone, but the Riverford organic veg box scheme do a zero packaging box and all their other boxes have recyclable or compostable packaging. We get a medium sized box which is enough for us (2 adults, 2 kids) for a week and it's about £15 with free delivery.

Unless our Government enacts laws that force manufacturers to use less plastic, then the stuff will just keep filling up the worlds oceans and landfills.

We use more plastic (per person) in the UK for food than any other european country, the USA and UK top the list, in total, its 105 and 99kg respectively.
German is 81kg, no other european country is in the top 10.... so it can be done.

We need wholesale change, less plastics, more energy from waste but of course, leaving the EU allows the Govt to do whatever it likes on this and other environmental matters and given how we as consumers don't give a fuck (if it inconveniences us in any way) then expect the UK to relax measures or introduce tough targets with no intention of meeting them.

That coop recycling scheme looks great, thanks for posting, I didn’t know about it. My local coop is too small to have it but you can send comments regarding your local shops and I’ve written and asked for them to offer it. If we don’t ask we may not get!

They’ll recycle soft plastics (crisp packets etc) from any source it doesn’t have to have been bought at Coop, which is great. I’m impressed by Coop’s eco-efforts in general, we need all supermarkets to make these kinds of changes. Waitrose seem quite good too but generally out of my price range. Tesco and M&S are terrible for excessive unrecyclable plastic packaging I have noticed but none of them are great so this is really good to see.
www.coop.co.uk/contact-us/comments-about-a-store

for all uses, not just food

@ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings

My pet hate is stuff that could be recycled if it didn't have non recyclable material virtually welded to it. Cauldron tofu for example, the plastic tray can be recycled but the film covering it can't, and it's near impossible to remove all of the film from the tray. Same with takeaway sandwiches, the cardboard can be recycled but every inch of it is coated in a non recyclable plastic film that just can't be removed. I don't buy supermarket sandwiches very often but I eat a lot of tofu and it's very annoying.

Have you considered buying your ToFu from the world food section instead? You can by them in tetra pack cartons there which can be recycled.

Online clothes shopping is another i find shocking. Every item wrapped in a plastic bag on a hanger. In massive box or big to fit it all in.

Folded neatly would make smaller packages and produce less waste.

www.gov.uk/recycling-collections

Check here what local recycling are arrangements are in place across the UK by putting in a postcode

Kpo58 we do get some from there but it tends to only be the silken tofu you can buy packaged that way. The firm tofu always seems to come in the mixed packaging. That's at regular supermarkets though. I might make a special trip to the big world foods supermarket and see if there's anything better there.

This thread is great please keep the ideas coming .
I agree with PP about single use plastics used in medical care. It’s a massive issue. As I was doing my zillionth lateral flow test recently I was feeling really grim about the amount of extra single use plastic (so, spending almost all its very long life as waste) that’s been shipped over from China that just this one pandemic will have generated. The plastic will be here with us for centuries. Yes of course we are very lucky to have this option but kits for mass testing need to be made much more sustainably.

@Sparklfairy I can recommend sodastream to help with your sparkling water habit (fellow addict here). You don't have a car but you can get the gas cannisters from sodastream (although their customer service is random) and you get a free return sticker for the empty one (alas not doorstep pickup but it was one of the nationwide pickups) - or argos/sainsburys offer the same.

We need extra recycling facilities in Wales my daughter has a food waste bin which i think is a great idea our council was toying with the idea but only collecting fortnightly that is the grim part who wants food hanging around going rotten for a fortnight in the middle of summer

My mum unpacks to the bare minimum of packaging in the shop and leaves the excess on the packing shelf for them to deal with. If more of us did it (me included ) they’d probably address the issue.

@MrsSkylerWhite

My mum unpacks to the bare minimum of packaging in the shop and leaves the excess on the packing shelf for them to deal with. If more of us did it (me included ) they’d probably address the issue.

I'm not sure littering is a good example.

I mean I could start taking excess plastic packaging and dumping it on the beach. If enough of us did it the authorities would probably address the issue.

How on earth is leaving the packaging on the packing shelf in the shop littering. What a silly comment.

Do you think the manager throws it on the pavement?

Have a look at Terracycle Royal.

As mentioned above, I set up a collection point because there wasn't one locally for a type of waste I wanted to recycle.

I also take the plastic bags from dry cat food to our vets who have a Terracyle collection point for these (we have 4 of our own and foster too so get through a lot of catfood).

Admittedly I don't recycle the single serve pouches because life is too short to wash and dry them. I do try to used canned or tetrapack food, which can be rinsed and recycled much easier as our council collect those, but most of our own cats won't eat the food in cans .

It's worth understanding the symbols on plastics and what your own council accept. As I said above, our council accept 1, 2, 4 and 5 type plastics.

This excludes the aforementioned cat food bags, and also overwraps from can multipacks - there is another symbol that indicates that the producer has paid a levy for using non recyclable material - this is what funds the likes of terracycle - it's a little swirl without a number.

Our council website is quite good in detailing how to recycle as much waste as possible. I do what I can and don't feel guilty about what is non recyclable because our council has a waste to energy incinerator, so it's not going to landfill anyway.

But I do have the odd 'what about' thought about the ethics of being involved in animal rescue with a no kill where possible policy, because we're facilitating the lives of animals that could be humanely PTS instead of going on to spend up to 20 years eating a lot of meat and producing a lot of waste.

DP needs quite a lot of medication, but I have discovered you can take old inhalers to some pharmacists for recycling, likewise blister packs of tablets.

Admittedly, to make this all worthwhile, you do need space to store things and be organised. We have a utility room and pantry where a lot of this stuff is stored, and I always have things like boxes of glass in my car, to be recycled next time I go out (our council doesn't collect glass from homes).

Tissues would be better composted and sanitary towels switched for period pants. Then you’d only have plastic wrap which is amazing.

@didireallysaythat thanks, I've always wanted one so this is a good excuse!!