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!

This is a great tip, thank you.

I've had milk delivered in glass bottles for 20 years - that's about 10 000 plastic bottles I havn't used.

Also - solid shampoo; bulk but washing up liquid on refillable 5L carton., decant into smaller bottle at home my big bottle and little bottle are butt 7-8 years old. Bar soap instead of shower gel. I always have a bottle of water on me. If I have to buy a drink while I'm out, I'll try and buy water in a tin.

Where I live that is the law.shops must take back packaging all of it.if you get, sat, a washing machine delivered they must take the packaging with them.
Cans and most glass bottles must have a deposit (25 cents on most plastic bottles, 7 cents on beer bottles)

Singe use drink bottles also have a deposit - they get crushed and reused in things like insulation and road surfacing

No plastic shopping bags, I buy fruit & veg loose and have mesh bags for them (which I made from an old net curtain)

Soap bars, shampoo bars etc etc etc

Don't drive yourself mad, households aren't the problem in the grand scheme of things.

Since the 70s I've been all about, "reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle"

we LOVE refill shops - really good opportunity to stock up on things in a plastic-free way. If by any chance you're worried about prices (as there are associations with refill shops being pricier) there are ways around this. Some things are more expensive in refill shops than they would be at a 'normal' shop', but some things are the same price, or even cheaper - this is just based on sourcing things, what's used in products etc. For example, I work in a refill shop, and we have 2 different brands of refillable conditioner and shampoo. One is really expensive because it has a very high organic content and is more highly concentrated. The other is about the same price as 'normal' shampoo and conditioner. I always tell people when they're coming to refill their bottles, as sometimes people don't check the prices, refill a massive bottle of the expensive one and then get a nasty surprise when they get to the till! So it might be worth going to your local refill shop and having a look round. You can absolutely ask the staff what products are more expensive than normal, and what are their cheaper foods/products - they shouldn't get offended, I get asked these questions all the time, and it's not an impolite question. So just to say, don't get put off by the fact that refill shops are associated with being more expensive - it's true for some products, but absolutely not true for many others. You can just go and get the products you can afford, and buy the other products at a 'normal' store - there's no shame in that, and you're still reducing plastic waste!

Other tips include

• save the disposable plastics that you DO have to reuse. For example, I have one old plastic fairy washing up liquid bottle. I just take it to the refill shop with me, and refill it each time! It might be more 'aesthetic' to buy another bottle to refill, but that would be buying an unnecessary product I don't need. Likewise, I don't have a fancy metal waterbottle (although it's totally cool if you do ofc!) - I just have a collection of plastic disposable bottles I've bought on e.g. trips out (such as a plastic bottle of sprite on a train journey when I forgot my water bottle and was thirsty). I just reuse those until they're totally worn out, then wash and recycle them.
• Take part in the 'Big Plastic Count' - this isn't technically about reducing the plastic you use, but can be really enlightening to see how much plastic/disposible materials you are using, plus provides much needed data!

Good luck! This is all a long process, don't beat yourself up if you don't get it perfect each time - the important part is that you're making an effort.

I've never understood what pancake mix even is—is it just a bottle of flour? Pancakes have three ingredients, two of which are eggs and milk.

Same with those sachets of porridge "mix"—it's just very expensive oats isn't it?

20 years of glass milk bottles is good going @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads 🙂 Is there a shampoo bar and soap bar that you have found works well? And do you refill your washing up liquid at a refill type shop or somewhere else?

There's some great ideas on this thread, thanks for starting it OP.

https://www.livecoco.com/collections/featured-products/products/oral-b-compatible-electric-toothbrush-replacement-heads-triple-pack?nbt=nb%3Aadwords%3Ax%3A19369773297%3A%3A&nb_adtype=&nb_kwd=&nb_ti=&nb_mi=&nb_pc=&nb_pi=&nb_ppi=&nb_placement=&nb_li_ms=&nb_lp_ms=&nb_fii=&nb_ap=&nb_mt=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_NC9BhCkARIsABSnSTZ490af0rWUiGoltr3VsfF5HWpvZAt_VwJBUkSen_XACChrQLV9kgsaAjMvEALw_wcB

I use these

What's sad is that it used to be easier to do some of these basic things, historically everyone used solid soap not liquid soaps, had milk delivered, mended clothes, cut up old clothes for dusters. I grew up on a farm and we had grocers vans and fish vans come round weekly. And it was cheaper to repair things than get them replaced. My grandmother had floral curtains in her spare room that must have been constructed from an old, much larger set because there were very carefully matched patches all over them. You couldn't tell during the day but at night you could see the patches thanks to the sun shining through them when they were closed.

Stop fixating on things matching a theme in your home and buy second-hand where you can.

I don't think everything being matchy matchy has been aspirational for decades. All interiors journalism has been about eclectism for years with a healthy dose of vintage finds.

@SoapCollector

1 - I like the solid shampoos from https://www.gruum.com/Gruum and The Friendly Soap Companyy*

or whatever the refill/no waste shop has.

2- I refill my washing up liquid from one of the 3 refill/no waste shops I now have locally. Before they opened, I'd buy 5 or 10 L at a time from BioD as their stuff is made in the UK.

Where did you get your glass containers?

Thank you for your reply and recommendations @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads 😁

I am in Australia. Amazon here has some so I would think Amazon UK would stock them.

Ikea 365 glass boxes instead of Tupperware

If you have plastic "tupperware" boxes, don't swap them all out until they aren't usable. That just adds to landfill.

The aim should be, when getting started is to reduce single use plastics and excess packaging and move on from there.

Agree with @Brefugee , stopping using a perfectly usable plastic container and buying a new glass or metal container instead is not environmentally friendly, you want to keep using your old stuff as long as possible and encourage your children to always try and buy a second hand option. My kids are so enthusiastic about vinted, it's brilliant. Whereas I don't buy second hand clothes (I do wear things a long time though) but love ebay and vinterior for things for the house.

Although I noticed that a PP said they reuse the single use water bottles. I'd be careful with using those because they are designed for single use and they are not very chemically stable so you'll start getting all sorts of leachables in your water if you keep reusing them.

The one thing that I don't think has been mentioned is there are more and more companies specialising in selling thing that are end of line or failed a QC check for appearance but are completely unused. So e.g. wonky.com for coffee and chocolate or Haines Collection for off cuts of fabrics or there's lots of options for remnants or roll ends for carpets. Tends to be more common for high end stuff though so not a cheap option.

I have ordered these, which are totally plastic-free cleaning refills.

https://www.goodcleanstuff.co.uk/collections/refillable-cleaning-sprays/products/10-multi-surface-cleaner-refill-sachets-mixed-fragrance

Let us know if they are decent products @AnotherDayAnotherIdea seems a very reasonable price

Yeah it's pretty good. I've also ordered powdered washing up liquid from a company called HomeThings. That only arrived today and it says it takes the night to fully dissolve but it smells nice.

The washing up liquid works out expensive though. We are very low income and this was a real splurge for me. The company is a startup so I understand, but it shouldn't be this hard. Fairy liquid should be selling paper sachets of powder-to-gel, on the high Street.

Me avoiding one bottle. What is that going to do? We need ten million households to avoid ten bottles! And more! I feel so powerless.

The government could legislate at the stroke of a pen. I don't understand why they don't want to, and they prefer people to buy plastic bottles that are filled with 95% water, when we have the miracle of clean water piped right up to our homes.

If I were rich I would make a couple of infomercials to try to get the message out. But I'm not.

And there is absolutely nothing I can do about milk, given the price of milk deliveries now. 😔

It is really annoying that many of the options are more expensive than the standard options.

Another option to reduce plastics is to use either period pants or washable pads or menstrual cups or there's plastic free pads and tampons if reuseable isn't for you. All available on the high street at different price points.

Shampoo and soap bars.
We have liquid soap in the downstairs loo and buy that in 5l containers - same for washing up liquid
Use powder dishwasher instead of tablets. Same for washing powder and stain remover
Never use fabric softener
Make our own bread
Loose veg
Don't buy tupperware but keep any margarine, soup, yoghurt, ice-cream pots for reuse
Large 3-5l bottles of oil
3kg bags of pasta and 10kg bags of rice
Reuse any plastic bags as bin liners
Cloth nappies, wipes and period pads
Make cloths and dusters out of old clothes
Don't buy clothes
Buy second habd
Only buy what you use. If something is at its use by date and you aren't going to eat it that day cook it anyway and you have another 2-3 days to eat it.
Boxes of tissues and fold into squares for pockets out and about instead of little packets
Paper wrapped toilet paper and kitchen roll
Dream clothes in place of kitchen roll

For a week don't throw any plastic out and you will see where you are generating the most plastic

Not sure if it's been said already - but reusable nappies really aren't as daunting as they might seem, and have saved us so much money