How can we get rid of plastic waste?

In France our local supermarket only has those biodegradable plastic bags made from corn starch on the vegetable section. When you get home the bags can either be composted or, in my case brought back to England and used to put food waste into that is going into the food waste recycling system and on to an anaerobic digester to produce biogas.

Following jura's post. In France we can only dispose of waste in transparent plastic bags supplied by the council. This is so the bin man can see whether we are disposing of recyclable materials, in which case the bag will be left behind until it is recyclable free.

I have had purchased clothes which have been put into those corn starch bags - not in this country though.
Yet.

I m doing my bit too really worried about it especially when I read that every bit of plastic ever made is still on this earth if ours and when you look around the house nearly everything is made of plastic
Thinking about takeaways my Chinese always used to come in a foil tin with a cardboard lid now it comes in a plastic container with plastic lid maybe we can all target places like that and get them to go back to their tinfoil tubs again

Jalima1108, I read/ heard somewhere that if you put a jug if water in the fridge, overnight I think, it removes all the chlorinated smell and other stuff that water filter jugs are supposed to remove. Don't know if it works though.
As to little plastic bags for carrots, brussels etc, could you use the paper bags used for mushrooms? After you have weighed them, in self service, you get a price sticker/ ticket, dispensed from the scales that can be stuck on the bag

They could be scrubbed and re-used to freeze home-made food until they split, then hopefully they can be recycled.

What's best to freeze home produce? Bags or the plastic containers which need to be disposed of when they split?

Bags leak and I freeze a lot of home made ready meals.

I do have some Pyrex dishes with plastic lids in which I freeze casseroles, etc, but it's the home-grown fruit? Or home-made stock?

Jalima- are the plastic bags for fruit and veg biodegradable?

Here people take thin cloth bags for fruit and veg or paper bags- but in the French supermarket all bags are biodegradable. You could buy rolls of the biodegradable ones and take a few with you each time. Like taking your own bags for the shopping- it is amazing how quickl you get into a routine and it becomes automatic.

The situation in the UK is critical, as most of the 'so-called recycled plastics' were shipped to China- which made no sense at all. So now China says (quite rightly) NO- it will all end up in landfill.

So easy for eggs to be in recycled carboard boxes, same for lots of stuff.

Even in the USA, if you go to McDonalds, stuff is sold in cardboard, not polystyrene. The country just has to say , NO- NO MORE' and businesses will just adapt.

One way to also cut down on tons of transport and diesel- is to flatten all cardboard boxes for recycling- be they biscuits, cereal, rice, etc, etc- and for all plastic bottles to be squeezed and flattened (air out) and top put back on. A lorry can then transport at least 4 times more per journey.

Since we now pay by weight here in my area- many parents have swapped to those modern washable shapped nappies, with inserts - as disposables are full of chemicals and gel which weighs a ton when wet. With modern washing machines that take a lot less water and energy as the old ones- it is much cheaper too and parents feel they are really doing something positive for the environment.

I already flatten cardboard boxes and as much of the plastic as I can. Some plastic bottles are too stiff to squash though.

Great! I squash them against the kitchen units - btw same with all cartons (milk, orange juice, etc).

Again, once you get used to it, it just becomes automatic.

Standing on the bottles usually works (but not always, and if there is any liquid left in them it squirts across the room)

We use produce bags for fruit and veg. Some I purchased and some I made from an old net curtain with shoe laces to fasten. There are lots of zero waste bloggers and plastic free on the internet including on pinterest and while they are sometimes extreme in some of their ideas, they often have blogs on how to get started. I think every week we use less plastic adds up to lots over a year and every time I use my bags in a supermarket or on our local market someone asks me and I get to spread the word

I support a charity in South Africa called JBay Recycling and it is aimed at children who are very involved in recycling. They get a lot of education about it and they teach their parents. (https://jbayrecyclingproject.org/)
For example, they are taught in school to say 'I'd like a lemonade please no straw' when they buy a drink. Little things like straws get forgotten but there are billions of them sold every year.

The biggest problem as far as I can see is that too many people drop their litter in the street whenever they feel like it. We live down a pretty lane and we pick up the litter people drop out of their car windows daily. What happened to the idea of 'Litterbugs'

One thing I read about that may get the message across is, anything’s you buy In the supermarket or anywhere else for that matter. Take the plastic off the product at the cash desk and hand it back to the cashier. Sainsbury spring to mind who this week were criticised for wrapping a coconut. Every little helps as the saying goes and if everyone did it our voice would be heard.

My sister in law always takes a black bag with her when she goes for a walk in Suffolk she puts it her recycling bin when she gets home. Must say when I have visited suffolk always looks neat and tidy.
I have been out with my h in the car and seen the public throwing rubbish out the window of the car.
I think it’s the usual thing now with ignorant people who don’t care at all, only got to look at the news this morning and see the piece about children with rotting teeth so young thats dreadful. Rubbish food and drink.

So pleased to read this thread (apart from the politicos) because I’m really anxious about the amount of plastic we get handed every day, which we just can’t recycle. Great idea just to put veg loose in the trolley once weighed, or to use the mushroom bags in UK supermarkets, I always carry a string bag too, but so much fruit comes plastic wrapped - what happened to the old punnets we used to get? Btw, the area of France I go to only has recycling for paper and glass, nothing else, so it is very varied even there, and the butter I bought in France was plastic wrapped instead of grease proof paper! In our UK village, when we do a ‘litter pick’ it is almost all plastic.

I bought ( and use ) one of Waitrose's reuseable cups for their free coffee about two years ago, and in all that time I have only ever seen one other person use one at the coffee machine. When I ask at the checkout for my free coffee and say that I don't need a cup, it's almost always greeted with puzzlement as if they've never heard of such a thing. Why on earth don't Waitrose promote the idea of taking a reuseable cup when going shopping? Think of the Brownie points they could earn for themselves!

Okay ladies, reading through the posts:
Get your milk delivered in bottles
Buy as much as you can loose.
Buy veg and fruit from your local market, they put it in paper bags.
Only buy eggs in pressed paper cartons
Get an insulated (stainless steel) cup for any teas, coffees and water consumed out of the home, reuse forever.
Cease to buy bottled water.
A question I can not answer, currently I put my freezing portions of food in tubs originally by the Cowlicious yoghurt people, what you you suggest?

Are you trying to make this thread political, icy?

What's political about icy's comments?!

I have picked up a lot of tips from your posts which I plan to action. A lot of things I already do. Can I also ask you to think about the micro plastics which are used in lots of products and also in acrylics . When acrylics are washed the micro plastics are washed out and go into the food chain. Not always possible but please when you can buy clothes made of natural fibres.