How can we get rid of plastic waste?

I am. I stopped using plastic bags about 40 years ago when I bought two trolley bags and a string bag from ASDA. Any bags I did get were reused as bin liners and I have never wasted food.

I get very irritated with the 'all of us throw £700 of food every year/put clothes into landfill/buy coffee in throwaway cups. Some do, maybe most do, but 'all' do not.

I have learned this week that tea bags contain plastic. If we all used leaf tea we would get better quality tea, much cheaper than bags and now it seems, much greener. The used leaves can go on the garden
How about bar soap? We now use pure vegetable soap which doesn't contain SLS, notorious for drying the skin, instead of shower cream. My skin is improved, and we don't have dozens of plastic bottles to put in the recycling . I'm sure everyone else has good ideas about different things to do, but isn't it encouraging to hear that millions less plastic bags are being used?

What is the point of tea bags? If you want a cup of tea, make tea with loose tea in a pot. Tea bags are slower, more expensive and have less flavour. Just say no to tea bags.

Millions fewer plastic bags are being used because of legislation. We need legislation to ban the use of single use plastics, having refundable bottles etc. Why are the government dragging their feet on this?

Our little town amidst lots of publicity, tried to go plastic bag free several years ago. The local shops all came on board, bread, fruit, etc all got put into paper bags. The butcher sourced bio-degradable plastic bags as he wasn't able to use paper completely. Only Tesco and the kebab shops ignored it all and carried on. I notice now though that several shops have slid back to using plastic - albeit very thin, supposedly bio-degradable - as it's a lot cheaper. Perhaps it should just be taxed to the ceiling. Money talks.

And am I alone in washing out and re-using plastic bags?

There was a woman on the local radio last week talking about when she was taught to knit a shopping bag out of plastic bags. One day she went to get it out of the cupboard and it had started to disintegrate. She hadn't realised they were biodegradable bags.

I mostly shop in Waitrose and try to buy organic fruits and vegetables esp. if grown in England. These only come in plastic bags ! So, I have stopped buying organic but I am not pleased about this. What can I do ?

Am really thinking about this, now. Have seriously started to change things. So plan is,
Take a mug out with me in my bag so can drink water.
Change to tea leaves.
Buy bread in the village have it sliced and keep in a reyclable carrier bag.
Have asked Ocado to clearly mark when the packaging is recyclable. Perhaps with a green uppercase R.
Have asked the Times to wrap the supplements in paper not plastic.
Always use cloth shopping bags.
Perhaps put all waste in compost bin and then fish out what does not decompose.
Pick up all the litter in the road outside my house and recycle what I can.
Use vinegar and soda bic to clean.
Any other ideas?

Portion control your food and only cook as much as you need or enough to eat and enough to freeze.

Do not buy food special offers '2 for the price of 1' unless you can clearly see that you can eat what you are buying within its consumable life, freeze it, or, if has a long life (tinned and dry goods).

Plan your menus to use what is already in the fridge before you buy more fresh food.

Freeze your leftovers and have a list of what is in the freezer.

Sorry not to have read all this thread, but to me the most obvious change is to stop the sale of pre-packed in plastic vegetables. It already makes me angry that if I want one carrot, I have to buy a bagful at most supermarkets. Come on Tesco's, stop doing this!!!

Our Teso has both - prepacked and loose - in most vegetables. There is an obvious and wide price difference, so I buy loose. It seems most people don't compare prices, they see a nice neat pack of three courgettes or a box of loose ones from which they have to select three, and just pick up the pack. Convenience is all, however small the effort needed!

Does it come down to who has more power - governments or big business and the plastics industry?

We may try to prevent more plastic going into our oceans but how do we get rid of the reported 165 million tons of plastic washing around in them now?

polluting-plastic.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIotjTnaDX2AIVr73tCh3bRADLEAAYASAAEgLFGfD_BwE

Here in Denmark we have deposits on all glass bottles and most plastic bottles and Denmark actually protested so vigorously some years ago when the EU wanted to ban all deposits on bottles that now Germany and the Netherlands have deposits as well. Most shops sell reusable plastic bags and many sell cloth carrier bags as well to encourage people to use them rather than plastic and all carrier bags in supermarkets cost something. Dress shops, gift shops etc are increasingly returning to the use of paper carrier bags.
Rubbish is increasingly being sorted as companies provide different bins for different types of waste.
Most of all this came about because our generation demanded it - a lot of us supported Greenpeace in the 1970s, so make yourselves heard on the subject, ladies.

Most of all this came about because our generation demanded it - a lot of us supported Greenpeace in the 1970s, so make yourselves heard on the subject, ladies.

grandtante I was going to say something similar - our generation was brought up without being surrounded by much plastic so could find it easier than younger generations who have become so used to plastic bottles of water, fizzy drinks, coffees in plastic lined 'paper cups', everything packaged (and clean).
However, there are many younger people who have got the message - let's hope they find the zeal to do something and encourage others.

Does anyone know what Mumsnet have to say on this subject?

I've had a quick look on Mumsnet and there doesn't seem to be anything recent.
Maybe they're more concerned with getting rid of 'disposable' nappies, which is another big problem.

Thanks Fennel
Ah yes, the world 'nappy mountain'

Just bought a compostable punnet of mushrooms in Tesco so it can be done. I had a little chat with the cashier and she said that a lot of customers will need a lot of convincing that they don’t need quite as much packaging.
We have a couple of generations now that have never bought meat at the butchers and can’t imagine buying it ‘loose’

It can be done.

Perhaps that should be the slogan!

I recently did an online shop with Ocado. I was horrified that I had a packet of burgers in one bag, another, exactly the same, in another bag, and a single yogurt in yet another! I did go on to their online chat to query this and apparently they are looking at ways to improve this!

Just wondering ..... We were talking with family about things we use made from plastic. Most are in the kitchen and bathroom. What did toothbrushes used to be made from? I have no memory of them being anything other than plastic.

Iceland have announced they are to totally replace all their plastic packaging. It will take 5 years though.

You can buy bamboo toothbrushes- but here in Switzerland, and if I remember rightly, in many whole foods in the uk- plastic handles with a snap on head. Same here in Switzerland- one handle can last for 10 -20 or more brush head changes. We now use one electric toothbrush- with one small brush head each.

As Jalima says- the power of large industries is so strong. Same for sugar, or plam oil, etc. With a collapsing industry- and with it incoming taxes (for those who do pay them ) - the GVT will be wary of putting pressure on them. The plastics and packaging industry is worth billions- with large plants and specialised machinery producing it.

Whatever measures are taken locally to control waste the result always seems to be more fly tipping!

I had wondered why my tea bags took so long to compost -thanks for that info.

Such a minor thing -but it is much better to open bags and compost tea leaves, and throw bag in bin.