To ask you to share easy ideas for eliminating plastic

[AnotherDayAnotherIdea]

The easiest one that strikes me is not buying those plastic bottles of pancake mix, given how simple the recipe is. I am amazed they are even still sold.

Please share plastic-eliminating ideas!

I looked into milk deliveries. Sadly it's three times the price of supermarket milk. I know that supermarket milk is a loss leader but in the 90s when I last had deliveries it wasn't this much, even counting for inflation.

I have been buying cartons of washing powder instead of laundry liquid. It's an easy win.

Cheeky Panda loo rolls are good and come in paper packaging.

For tea bags, Clipper organic Everyday tea is in unbleached plastic free tea bags and have no plastic wrapping inside at all. Just a cardboard outer box.

No way! Really? That's not great, I had no idea, I hardly watch TV.
I keep meaning to give Bazoo or Bumboo a try just, might do that sooner

Oh yes cheeky panda, that's who I bought, couldn't bring them to mind.

Yeah, I contacted them and said if they wouldn't wrap each individual roll with the word "crap", I'd be happy to have it in my family bathroom. They didn't agree with my point.

Supermarkets should be forced to reintroduce loose fruit and veg and give away free paper bags to put them in. The plastic packaging that comes with fruit and veg now is just crazy

Buy block butter wrapped in paper or foil, not those tubs

Hotel shower caps are great for covering bowls of leftovers. You can wash them quite a few times and they are much less annoying to use than clingfilm.

Use soda syphon for diet coke, tonic water and fizzy water - has saved many plastic bottles over several years.

WGAC can compost cardboard inner and shred paper of loo roll.

Bought six Ikea glass and bamboo dishes for oven, microwave and dishwasher to make our own ‘ready meals’ for freezer and leftovers.

Beeswax wraps and plates covering dishes also for leftovers.

Take own water bottle and never buy plastic water bottles. Own coffee cup when travelling. Stainless steel bento boxes for,packed linches.

Clipper teabags plastic free packaging

Smol laundry and dishwasher tabs

Riverford are the best for minimal, eco packaging and have made stunning efforts using starch I think so can compost what does need to be packaged.

Bulk buy loo cleaner, washing up liquid, Castile soap and decant with different essential oils for shower gel, hand soap.

Just been ill and forced to do emergency shop in convenience store and literally everthing is covered in plastic even fruit. It’s so hard. Ended up just buying Heinz tinned tomato soup🙄

Challenges for us are dog food as kibble sacks lined with plastic also meat pouches, toothpaste, milk but would love glass bottle delivery.

Use 5l tubs from Miniml for washing up liquid, laundry liquid, hand soap and surface cleaner, they accept the empties back for refilling/recycling and are loads cheaper than Faith In Nature/other brands.

Smol for dishwasher tabs.

Hotel shower caps on everything! The last time I bought clingfilm was when DH got a tattoo!

Block soap in the shower. L'Occitane products for treatiness - they do refills for most things.

I really don't get on with shampoo bars though, would love a rec if anyone has one as that's one of the things I just haven't been able to swap out.

The best thing you can do to reduce your plastic footprint is to not eat fish/sea animals.

Buy as little as possible. I do two shops a week- one online for sundries like pet food, cleaning products etc, and one for food which has no plastic hardly. I cannot bear the amount of plastic and unwrapping I have to do when I collect the sundries shop. I now unwrap all the items - remove cardboard or plastic wraps etc - and I give them back to the supermarket to deal with. I refuse to give them the benefits of the plastic (cheaper transport costs, quicker moving etc) whilst they shoulder absolutely zero of the clean up after. It infuriates me that we pay for recycling collection when they benefit from the plastic, at a detriment to all of us and the planet. So now I don’t bring it home!!! Not once have they refused. I tell them we don’t have a recycle collection and they take it back and can sort it out themselves.

@HelloMyNameIsElderSmurf I tried quite a few when I first swapped and liked Gruum shampoo bars best, I use the coconut 'nourishing' one. I do live in a soft water area though which I suspect helps.

We don’t consume meat or dairy, so that is a big help, people forget how much plastic is used in farming, particularly with livestock, then when you think about the amount of fishing waste in our oceans, fish farms etc.

We buy loose fruit/veg, although thats a little bit more common where we live compared to the UK.

We have allergies in our family, due to that we rarely buy premade food, so plastic bottles, ready meal trays etc are a fairly rare feature in our house.

We use a guppy bag when washing anything synthetic like sports gear, or when our children were young nappies. So thats another, we used washable nappies rather than disposable ones, so that also meant no plastic nappy bags etc.

We have what is essentially a mini septic tank in our garden for our dog and cats poo, so again, no bin full of poo bags.

We don’t regularly buy stuff, so we aren’t really adding to our plastic load, so unlike a lot of people we don’t have rammed full tupperware drawer, or loads of drinks bottles etc. Everyone has one bottle, one lunch box and one thermos each for us two oldies.

Since 2023 (?) there are some pretty heavy packaging taxes for large producers of plastic waste. Over 10 tonnes but everything has to be weighed and categorized even up to that limit. Interesting that “majority component plastic” (e.g. 40% plastic, 30% aluminium, 20% paper, 10% whatever) is classified as all plastic.
One of the reasons for increasing prices for the public since 2023 as that cost gets passed on.

Bars of soap not liquid
Cotton cloths not sponges

This certainly wouldn't go well in our household. The DC would stink! They are constantly covered in mud and I'm brushing bits of food out of dd's hair on a daily basis.

I get so depressed about the amount of single use plastic so this is a great thread! We use one of the refill stores and get loo cleaner, floor cleaner, hand soap, shampoo, conditioner, cleaning spray, washing up liquid and laundry detergent and conditioner in big 10 litre containers which we just top up when needed and pour into nice dispensers for use. Only downside is they are a pain to store. We also use a local farm who have one of those milk dispensers which we get in reusable glass bottles. I started by looking at what was creating the most plastic waste in our house and it was definitely milk. We still have too much plastic in the recycling but less than we otherwise would.

I don’t use cling film -use Tupperware or reusable food cover
soap rather than than shower gel
don’t buy drinks out -take a flask or water bottle

not sure I could go with the not washing kids hair though-sweaty hair smells horrible

No me neither, a friend does it and insists her children have beautiful hair, she is clearly noseblind.

Washing powder in a cardboard box rather than liquid or tablets in plastic packaging.

Gosh maybe you're my friend!

My dc like to douse themselves with perfume so I think they smell nice!

If they have a nice long bath and I rub their heads with the flannel and massage it in, it does come up clean. People did for centuries without washing their hair with detergents.

Great thread!
Washing powder in cardboard box
Smol dishwasher tabs and compostable cloths
Dog poo waste bin, was really worried about this one but doesn't smell or attract flies or anything
Shampoo and conditioner bars. 5 l tub conditioner for if need some as conditioner bar isn't usually as good but this one's ok.
Tablets for handwashing etc
Recycle soft plastic at Tesco, although not convinced they deal with it properly. No bags for deliveries
Take other plastics to my dads as his council recycles yoghurt pots etc
Usual flasks, mugs etc
Diet Coke from cans not bottles ( why isn't water and other drinks sold in cans as default?)
Vinted for clothes to hopefully reduce microplastics. Recycle all clothes and shoes

Does anyone know if any truly compostable / biodegradable dog poo bags for when we are out and about?

Oh and beeswax not cling film of course and have a stash of every size of bag and tub for if needed

Swapped all our plastic containers for glass. I've also bought solid wood and stainless steel chopping boards because the more I read about the glue used in bamboo and wooden boards the more concerned I got.

A roll of gladwrap lasts us 2 to 3 years.