How can we get rid of plastic waste?

There is certainly no harm in using a thermos or glass bottle for your water, Jalima but it is harmful to encourage the spread of misinformation.

In Sweden we have a machine inside every shop, you put your bottles and cans through a little hole in the machine it sends them out of the back of the machine to crunch them, you then press a litttle button and out comes a receipt for the amount you have put in to be recycled, then you leave the receipt at the cashout and get the money back off your shoppping or just get your money back simple as that. There is no litter here, the kids go around and collect thrown away bottles /cans and get money back, fool proof for everyone especially the environment.

Sweden uses the plastic it collects too Nanny41 - not just shipping it off to China. I think there are certainly lots of lessons to be learnt from the Swedes.

"Perhaps we need to instigate a world summit, we can do our best but leading by example may not be enough."

We can't be leading by example and learning from Sweden, can we?

There have been lots of world summits on plastic waste. The government was not interested until China refused to take our waste this year, as previously mentioned.
Sorry to make it political.

I do my best but so much of what we buy comes in plastic packaging. I find it easier to shop at a big supermarket and it's hard to avoid plastic completely.

Anyone any solution for the packaging around medication?
I wish chemists would go back to bottles and separate tablets. They all seem to come in blister packs.

Most councils won't take all grades of plastic for recycling so the first thing this country should do is build plants which can cope with recycling all forms of plastic and other waste too like sewage and use it for producing energy. We can often recycle the juice bottle but not the lid. My local Mencap charity shop collects milk bottle tops but not juice ones. There's no consistency.

I recycle as much as I can and make my own garden compost and would be willing to pay a deposit on all packaging purchased because I know I'd take it back for the refund. No one makes you buy fruit and veg already in packaging; there's plenty of loose stuff to choose from and it usually works out cheaper.

The litter in the countryside is a disgrace and I'm constantly picking it up when out dog walking. There could be a scheme where the council gives you a voucher towards your council tax if you bring in a bag of cleared litter to their depot on a regular basis. Maybe, also, to qualify for certain benefits you should be required to keep a certain stretch of your local area clear of litter. That would be a good start but difficult to monitor, I know, but if you get taxpayers' money for doing nothing then it would be a way to start to pay back society. Those completing their sentences in open prisons could do this too.

You don't get tax payers money for doing nothing though. You'll either being looking for work, and proving that you are, or not working because you're not well enough, or are caring for somebody. Its considered that if you're able to do any kind of unpaid work then you're well enough for paid work.

If the government put extra VAT on items wrapped in plastic packaging so they were more expensive, then manufacturers would stop using plastic, so they could have more competitive prices.

the old recycling 3 Rs are so true

REDUCE is first

re-use

re-cycle

We have been fed the news that we just needed to be more dilligent and careful about recycling - but recycling should only be the very last option.

I would like to see a return to paper bags being available in shops too. If I impulse buy an item of clothing I don't want to put it in the same bag as my food, but neither do I want to buy yet another plastic bag. If I've paid a lot for the clothing it takes away some of the pleasure by putting it in with other shopping.
Also agree about some people not bothering to recycle as much as they could. A glance at neighbours' overflowing wheelies confirms that.
With regard to the plastic water bottles contributing to cancer I have heard of several suffers being told by their specialists not to use plastic bottled water. Whether that is based on science or just precaution I've no idea.

Why not take a couple of plastic bags you got before from clothes shops with you, and keep those for clothes only. E P .

Yes threex there used to be some lovely bags ( made from stiff paper) given out in clothes shops, before plastics took over.

Agreed, I've kept a few- they fold down easily and can be re-used for a long time. I cut the strings off the top and keep them in a box- can be used for all sorts of things (especially in the garden).

Some people don't care and I don't know what the answer to that is. We have a canal at the back of our house and a lovely new towpath has been put down, meaning it is lovely to go for walks/bike rides etc. However, the amount of rubbish is appalling, both in the water and on the banks. There are plastic bags, cans, crisp packets, bottles, even bits of furniture. I have contacted the Canals and Rivers Trust who say they are doing their best but while people seem to think it's OK to discard rubbish in this way they are probably fighting a losing battle.

If Primark only use paper carrier bags why can't all clothing shops use them?

When we walk round the little lanes around our village we pick up assorted rubbish, take it home and bin it. Why should we have to do that?

We will all do what we can as consumers...what we need is political will to stop the manufacture of plastic bags/packaging altogether.

Some of them still use paper carriers, although one chain which did, CC, which I used to use occasionally, has now closed down.
I still have some bags.

Primark is the only large clothing shop chain that I know of now Jalima who does use paper carriers. Pity I don't shop there much.

Medicines is a good one D.j. they all come in the dreaded blister packs. I now buy my soluble aspirin in a bottle from Boots as i can't open the blisters. Will now have to find a shop that stocks them in glass bottles.

starting small the Scottish government is putting curbs on plastic cotton buds ,apparently millions wash up on our beaches .There is also a campaign to stop using single use plastic straws ,lots of local bars and restaurants getting onboard by using paper straws ..but only where they are asked for a straw

May I apologise for going all 'evangelical' - but it is such an important issue, and we just can't wait for 2040 whatever, as Mrs May says. We need to act now, and fast- as grand-parents we owe our grandkids that much, I hope.

Surely the paper bags idea could be implemented quickly?

Anyone else laughing hollowly as we who never wasted anything, never chugged water out of plastic bottles, eschewed excess packaging, recycled everything and generally did our bit for the planet have to listen to the wasters and burners lecturing us about how ‘we’ should go green?