Life before plastic

In the 1950s our washing up bowl was enamel but I think there was Fairy washing up liquid. Glass bottles were used for many of the things that are now in plastic. Also there was much less packaging. If you bought something in a shop the assistant wrapped it in brown paper and string or popped it in a small paper bag. Many items were refillable. My Saturday job in an ironmonger's shop in 1962 involved refilling paraffin cans from a tap. (Everyone seemed to have an Aladdin paraffin heater.)

I remember how excited my mother was when she got her first "polythene" washing up bowl. Until then she'd been using an enamel one with Tide detergent to wash dishes. Within days she'd managed to melt the edge of it, putting the roasting tin in it too soon after taking it out of the oven. Obviously we were not very experienced with the properties of plastic in those early days :D

Interesting to see bar soap coming back, and bar shampoo as well. I've always used soap for hand and face washing but have now tried bar shampoo, and it seems to do the job. I do remember when it became illegal to put shampoo & shower gel into glass bottles, presumably because of the horrible accidents people could have with broken bottles in the shower.

I have noticed some refill pouches in Sainsbury's but aren't they plastic as well?

I've never stopped using bar soap. It's nice to see it coming back, meaning there's now more choice.

Looking back, I suppose many more food items came in paper packaging, such as fruit and veg, and there wasn't the selection of processed foods available today to fill the world with plastics.

My mum had an enamel bowl for washing up - family lore has it that my sister once hit my brother over the head with it, which did him a certain amount of damage!

My mum would buy shampoo in sachets, I don't know if they were paper or what. Dad used a razor with replaceable razor blades and shaving soap in a dish with a brush. My mum had a metal powder compact & lipstick.

I’m not sure what the problem is with shampoo or laundry detergent or milk in plastic bottles.
All those are recycled by our council.

What annoys me is unnecessary plastic packaging on foods. I try to buy loose produce and meat whenever I can, but our local Co-op, which I like to support, is a convenience store and nearly everything is wrapped.

My last copy of the RHS Garden magazine came in an envelope made of compostable potato starch, instead of a plastic wrapper.
Small steps do help, I think.

Our dishes were washed in Daz ( in the sink) then came Squezy. My mother worked in a grocer’s, and I remember her bringing a sample from a ‘ traveller’, as sales reps were called. Another highlight was a sample box of fish fingers!

Every mum had a shopping bag, and string bag for potatoes. Brown paper and newspaper were used for wrapping, then burnt on the fire. Milk bottles were put on the doorstep, and lemonade bottles back to the shop ( for 3d, if I remember correctly)

My daughter and myself have just got some fine net bags to use for either loose fruit and veg or for putting clothes in which I hate the way they hand you a nice new top or bra to be put in your shopping bag with all your other purchases They are really nice
I ve gone onto bar soap, and am making ecobricks out of my plastic wrappings I don’t buy carrier bags but always walk with a few canvas or clothe bags I m trying to think of as many things as I can to change I wish the supermarkets sold much more loose fruit and veg I like Primarks paper bags policy

I agree with janea it’s not the plastic bottles, it’s the damned plastic that everything seems to be wrapped in . I have noticed that my local Morrison’s have done away with plastic bags in their fruit/veg dept and have replaced them with brown paper bags . My WI magazine comes in a fully compostable bag too .

I always use my crocheted shopping bag, it's light and stretchy and carries all manner of things. I crocheted several and have them away to friends and relatives.
I worked in a grocery store at the end of the sixties. We wrapped the produce in greaseproof paper and then in a paper bag, bacon, ham, cooked meat etc. The huge blocks of cheese came in waxed paper.
Remember paper carrier bags? My wedding dress came from the shop in tissue paper, a cardboard box, and a paper carrier bag.
I too remember taking the lemonade bottle back to the shop and getting the 3d deposit.

Some food was canned in either metal or glass - Fresh fruits and vegetables were loose, weighed at the register - Berries were usually in paper containers - Meats from the butcher were wrapped in paper - There were wood barrels with lids for pickles and for live snails - Cellophane and waxed paper were used for packaging along with cardboard - Grocery bags were made of sturdy paper -

Vegetables weren’t wrapped in anything. You just opened your bag and the assistant popped or poured it in from the scales, like potatoes or carrots, onions or apples etc.

Biscuits were in a glass topped tin in front of the counter. They were weighed into paper bags. ( and you could buy broken oned )

. Hot cross buns were for Easter and crumpets came in the Autumn....in paper bags of course.

Gilly at my nearest Morrison’s at Cowgate you can take your own washable plastic containers to have your meat and fish put into.

Back in the day all IV fluids came in glass bottles. (This was before my time but I once had been given some old nursing books that showed glass IV bottles.) There are a few IV products that do still come in glass bottles because plastic can cause issues with them - we have to use special IV tubing for them.

Syringes were glass and metal, and I am told that one of the nurse's responsibilities was to sharpen the needles as they would be sterilized and reused!!!

Oh what a great idea *janea I must ask at the one close to where I work . I was wondering how they manage with weights but I suppose they just zero the scale once the container is on it ( as I would do at home). I tend to shop there before work or during lunch and pop whatever I buy in the fridge at work . Having meat or fish in a proper container would be so much better . I do like Morrison’s fish counters .

Unfortunately you have to remember that a fair amount of energy goes into recycling plastics, so it's not a panacea. I think plastics are brilliant - but for situations where something long-lasting and waterproof is required such as pool liners or damp proof membranes in buildings. Or household buckets. Not for temporary packaging that is intended to be discarded.

Does anyone else remember glass baby feeding bottles. My DM had to put my baby brother on the bottle and we big girls helped to sterilize them in the pressure cooker. He survived!
I am guilty if being thrilled when plastic carrier bags replaced paper ones because the paper ones so often burst especially if something inside had leaked.
However there is no excuse to use plastic these days with so many sturdy shopping bags around.

^If you bought something in a shop the assistant wrapped it in brown paper and string^%
My MIL worked in a department store and she was an expert at wrapping things in brown paper and string.
Now even some wrapping papers are plasticised and can't be recycled.

I think the worst thing is the demise of the glass milk bottle and the introduced of those large plastic containers - all controlled by supermarket big business who have driven the demise of the milk deliveries and brought many dairy farmers to the edge of despair.

I don't think we will ever be able to do without plastic completely. The important thing is to make it recyclable.

I do remember the brown paper carrier bags that always had the bottom split apart halfway back from the shops.

I certainly hope they are not coming back.

Agnurse when I worked in a hospital pharmacy in the 70's, they made all IV fluids in a separate department. We also made most of our own medicines, ointments and injections in-house.

Our Tesco will pack any loose butcher/fish/deli items in your own packaging.

There have always been dairy farms and milkmen/women round here, and we've always had doorstep deliveries, in glass bottles. I've never used shower gel or soap dispensers either, always preferred a simple bar of soap. I still use washing powder in cardboard boxes. I've always been an old-fashioned girl but seem to be on trend now.

I had a stand off in a local fruit shop many years ago when they moved from tipping your loose fruit into your own bag onto insisting that we used a separate plastic bag for each type of fruit or veg. I lost - they wouldn't let me buy without the bags so I left all my would be purchases with them and never went back. It's about time stores became more aware - recycling is good, but it's much better not to waste the resources in the first place.

I remember punnets for strawberries, etc, woven from very thin balsa wood. The punnet was filled and then put in a brown paper bag, and placed carefully on top of all the other firmer fruit and veg in the shopping bag - none of the potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, oranges etc. were ever wrapped, just tipped into the shopping bag.

Tomatoes would be in a brown paper bag, as would mushrooms (if you were extravagant enough to buy them in those days!). And the shopping bags were either wicker baskets, or woven from strong raffia, used over and over again for years.

Even eggs were often sold by the half dozen and placed in a paper bag, then transferred to a bowl in the pantry at home.