an appeal if your going to buy tinned chocolates

Sorry but I do buy the plastic tubs of chocolates but I never throw the tub out. They are used to transport food eg cakes to my knitting club when it’s my turn, store all kinds of bits and bobs in the shed and store grandsons Lego. They stack whether they are full or empty if you mainly buy one type I usually get Roses or Quality Street.

Indeed!
Some time ago, Ecover stopped their 5 litre plastic bottles in favour of cardboard ones - that still had to be plastic lined. They wasted the liquid as they were difficult to rinse out, and difficult to handle as they disintegrated.
Now we get the 5 litre bottles again, and can use them for taking spare water in the car, on camping & festival trips, for bird seed etc.etc.
We buy from a local chocolate maker now (cardboard boxes and bio-degradable film!) but I have one or two of the large chocolate containers, and find the plastic ones last better than the tins, which seem to bash out of shape quickly (or is that just me?)

I've ordered a 'tin' of chocolates in my next Tesco order, but I've no idea whether it's tin or plastic. I'm hoping it's not cardboard as I really want it for a cake tin.

Our local Quakers have a stall at the monthly Farmers Market selling 'loose' Ecover products. So you can just take along empty bottles (not necessarily Ecover) for refilling at cost and a donation.

We have occasionally bought the chocolates in the plastic tubs but we don’t throw the tubs away.
I used them for biscuit tins at work and for transporting cakes to the office etc. My partner uses them for screws and nails and the like.

I can’t imagine buying any tubs now ... if there are only the two of us this Christmas, it would take us an age to eat all the sweets... ??

Some people collect tins but I don't think they'd collect plastic tubs, although I agree they can be used again and again

It wouldn't take the two of us an age to eat them, Norstat ?? (unfortunately)! We really don't have the willpower to resist - so maybe shouldn't buy them, but we do ?!

The empty containers are really useful for storing cakes, biscuits, bits and bobs, as others have said.

I think the plastic tubs have more uses and would be kept longer than a tin would be.

My mother uses metal biscuit tins to hold her sewing supplies. One year she gave me a sewing machine for Christmas, and my own metal biscuit tin with a few sewing supplies. She put a note on the lid of the tin: "It can never be what you think it is!"

While I think that people are prepared to pay more for a tin, it seems to me that double the price is going to put a lot of people off and on the face of it would seem to be way over priced.

It could take a 1,000 years for some plastics to decompose. Whereas that tin could be recycled over and over again.

Any containers I have are re-used for all sorts of things---buttons, beads, cakes, nuts for the squirrels, nails/screws/curtain hooks. Both tin and plastic.

Plastic tubs for me cheaper and more sustainable. I always use them to transport cakes to my sons who are always happy to receive them.

I collect tins so if I can I would buy them,however, I also love the plastic tubs for putting things into in the shed, keeps the damp and the mice out and indoors they are used for cakes, cake decorations, Lego bricks and just about anything that might get lost.
This year I am posting them so it’s lightweight plastic for me.

Do you remember when Christmas chocolates came in large glass jars?
I still have a couple which are used for storing pasta, soaking the fruit for the Christmas cake etc.
They do have plastic lids though.

I’d love to buy either but I dare not as there’s only me and with no visitors I’d have to eat the lot. Mmmmm! on second thoughts ?

I still have 2 of the old Quality Street tins, and they`re more than twice the size of the plastic tubs we have now. Then, you could dig your hand in and have a good rummage around, now they`re not even as deep as your finger!

Talking of tins, I love the M&S Christmas shortbread ones - the rectangular ones with a stag on the front. Must have 3 or 4 now. They hold 3 dozen of my mince pies, and at other times of year, a dozen fairy cakes for Gdcs’ birthday parties, or a mega-load of my very very cheesy cheese straws, which I often take as a ‘guest’ present.

I’m really not mad about shortbread, but dh makes up for me in that department.

nortsat, your post suggests you think taking an age to eat a tub of chocolates is a problem! ?

I brought back a plastic box of Biscuits for Cheese from Scotland over 20 years ago. I use it all the time for cakes etc, it is strong but light to transport items.
I have found that the tin ones can start to go rusty around the bottom after many years if you are washing them a lot.
Plastic is fine if you are re-using and not just throwing away.

My late step mother had a mania for collecting just about every plastic tub she could get her hands on! These included stacks of old margarine tubs, Ovaltine containers, and every size and shape of Coleslaw pot, Yogurt tub, Coffee and Jam Jars, and even pots from Nivea face cream!
After she passed away, her collection, mostly filled with bits of leftover food, or Blackcuurants from the freezer, were enough to fill a large lorry skip on their own!
Some of the containers where obviously decades old, and had become brittal with age. She would sometimes present any visitors who had called with a gift of one of these containers as they left, most of which I presume went straight into the nearest Bin, the contents unfit for Human consumption!

I have plastic boxes from sweets, they are brilliant for stacking and contain everything from buttons to lego and small household repair items.
I once had a deep quality street tin and placed my sewing implements in it, when I next went in the tin was rusty inside.
You may not like the idea of plastic being used but very few of us send them to landfills.

Same here I reuse everything that can be used I do not like waste. Why buy plastic containers when you can use something you already have. I keep wrappers from the chocolates for granddaughters to make collages. I wash and reuse sandwich zipper bags too. I use them for sauces for freezer etc Jamie Oliver style.

Thanks to every one for all your replies,
its up do the individual to decide on anything.
Plastic is a curse is on our only home we all have.
Plastic it easy to produce very difficult to dispose of
metal is difficult to produce but easy to recycle.
I have this dream that if we only bought the tinned chocolates and did not buy the plastic tubs,the stores(and the chocolate producers) would get the message and reduce the price of tins of chocolates.
Happy Christmas to one and all.

Channel 5 on saturday night at 19:40pm,
has an item on Roses versus Quality street.
Not sure if its repeat.