Stopping the waste first

MerylStreep that is a very interesting article. It’s not just glass sand is used for but concrete for building and roads, and also silica chips. It’s extraction is a factor in erosion and flooding, apart from climate change, but which rarely gets mentioned. Attention is being focused on climate change and not these other factors which we ignore at our peril. Where is the joined up writing?

JackyB
I agree, it’s a conundrum. Take glass. Sand is used in the manufacturing and yet the world is running out of sand.

www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-out-of-sand
Then you have the mining of tin: not environmentally friendly.
If I pit these against plastic then they win. Do the experts know what affect ingesting these plastics are going to have on the human race? But then again, perhaps the human race will adapt to suit eating plastic.

JackyB

Ave been trying to oust plastic containers from the bathroom and by scouring the internet and paying quite high prices am slowly managing, although I'm not sure if tins and glass pots are any more environmentally friendly. And I accidentally dropped a glass pot of facial cleanser and cracked the washbasin.

In the shops, however, it is nigh on impossible to avoid plastic bottles.

Here in Germany, all drinks containers - bottles of plastic and glass as well as cans - are paid for at purchase and you get the deposit back when you return them.

When buying vegetables you are encouraged to use the reusable net bags rather than the plastic bags.

Otherwise, it is not easy to avoid plastic
As for presents for the DGC, we would never get anything without asking the parents first, and then never anything plastic (except Lego).

I have made lots of things for them out of my huge stash of old clothes, towels and sheets: aprons, bags for their play shop, smocks for art lessons at school, etc.

Yes am always impressed re bottle recycling in Germany, very handy to have stations inside supermarkets to dispose of your used items.

MerylStreep

Coca Cola produce 100 billion plastic bottles a year ?

I was horrified when I watched a tv programme www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010zxs?at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=CF016260-35A3-11EC-889E-43280EDC252D&at_campaign=64
We had it right in glass bottles, for soft drinks and milk. Returnables always better.

Ave been trying to oust plastic containers from the bathroom and by scouring the internet and paying quite high prices am slowly managing, although I'm not sure if tins and glass pots are any more environmentally friendly. And I accidentally dropped a glass pot of facial cleanser and cracked the washbasin.

In the shops, however, it is nigh on impossible to avoid plastic bottles.

Here in Germany, all drinks containers - bottles of plastic and glass as well as cans - are paid for at purchase and you get the deposit back when you return them.

When buying vegetables you are encouraged to use the reusable net bags rather than the plastic bags.

Otherwise, it is not easy to avoid plastic
As for presents for the DGC, we would never get anything without asking the parents first, and then never anything plastic (except Lego).

I have made lots of things for them out of my huge stash of old clothes, towels and sheets: aprons, bags for their play shop, smocks for art lessons at school, etc.

Elizabeth27
Did you see the Panarama program last night? They company have been lying since about 2008 about their green credentials.

Urmstongran
Not in my bathroom ? Good old fashioned soap for washing and shampooing. I’ve never bought a bottle of water.

And look in our bathrooms.
How many of us have plastic bottles of shower gels? Shampoos? Hand pumps of soap at the sink?

And lifestyles?
Plastic bottles of water to carry around/put in the car? Do we live in the Sahara? What is this constant need for hydration.

Glad to see the most recent supply of Vagifem came with a reusable applicator. About time! I have always saved the blue sticks for recycling. I am currently using one of the blue ones instead of the white ones so I can see the white tablet is in the correct place and doesn't get lost on its way to where it is going.

I have lived rural for 15 years, there is no street lighting at all. I'm not sure it is a great idea tbh as it is pitch black and people do unfortunately have nasty accidents and get killed regular (by cars usually)

M&S packaging is already changing to card rather than plastic I have noticed but it is M&S

We were talking about the packaging and how fast it builds up. I realised when I buy my meat from the butcher there is little plastic. The meat is in paper and all the pieces are put in one bag together - not a tray in sight. I wish I could buy my fish like that too.
I try and buy all my fruit loose so it goes into a paper bag or a biodegradable one.
Do you remember years ago when drapers used brown paper to wrap things or paper bags?

That phrase 'throw away'. There is no 'away'.

Coca Cola bottles are 100% recyclable, the problem is with those people that do not put them in the recycling bin.

Some people still don’t get it, my neighbour told me she was doing her bit as she had thrown two boxes of plastic straws away and now used paper ones.

All that coke drunk and nobody really even knows what's in it!

I think of all the plastic bubble top things on McDonalds drinks cups too. Must be billions of them.

Coca Cola produce 100 billion plastic bottles a year ?

Biodegradable shopping bags do degrade. I recently found one which had been stuck down the back of my car seat for goodness how long. Most of it had turned to a sort of dust and had to be hoovered out.

We’ve just come back from a couple of days in Yarmouth with DGS. I feel like the grinch who stole Christmas.
After the sea life centre, where we were among a handful of visitors who wore masks, I managed to convince said child that plastic tat from China was not the way to go.
We went into a couple of Penny arcades on our way back to the car. Enough plastic tat there to fill a few containers. Luckily no one manages to win anything so, presumably, it never needs replacing!
We have to stop it but I don’t have the answers on how to.

I thought biodegradable plastics were made from corn starch, so are made from a biological base material, so once composted the residue will be no different from any other vegetable material you put on the compost heap.

Most of the biodegradable bags I get are from packaging around direct mail and subscription magazines. One of these will hold a weeks food waste and any spare ones go on the compost heap.Tthey are never there in any recogniseable form when i dig the compost out in spring and put it on the veg beds.

Even the PM is talking about reducing plastic today. I like to think he read our thread.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts on this. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Whilst I completely understand the concerns about streetlighting being turned off I've actually lived in an area where this happened in North Somerset. Purely selfishly I loved it as it seemed good for the environment and the dark skies were beautiful and great for wildlife. I say that as someone who rarely goes out at night and can see exactly why the light streets would make people feel safer.

Blossoming

I wonder if the newer ‘biodegradable’ plastics are actually biodegradable, or do they leave micro plastic residues?

Blossoming
This might give you some answers.

news.berkeley.edu/2021/04/21/new-process-makes-biodegradable-plastics-truly-compostable/

Well as I buy 80% of my stuff from charity shops I m doing ok
And my stuff I don’t want goes back to charity shops so I have a nice circular scheme going on

I wonder if the newer ‘biodegradable’ plastics are actually biodegradable, or do they leave micro plastic residues?

Never think of myself as wasteful due to a pretty frugal upbringing. However, in the past I have undoubtedly indulged in more clothes than really necessary. This is currently being dealt with! Shock horror when I told my 'save the planet' children that one of my jumpers, which they admired, was 63 years old. M&S in the days of style and built to last. Crazy world.

We all have too many gadgets - this includes me - we are all getting to materialistic. Must have the latest phone, a new car etc. We need to think about these things.

I do not want to be rude, but speak for yourself, by all means, but do not speak for others. I am on my fourth mobile phone in 25 years. Each one only replaced when it failed. They were all recycled.

None of our cars are less than 15 years old. I have had my lovely bright blue Yaris since 2007, it was 4 years old when I bought it and I will keep using it until it has to go the scrapyard. It is running perfectly and has never broken down, so, with a bit of luck, it will last me quite a few more years. It is not that we cannot afford new things, we just cannot see the point if secondhand will do as well and is so much cheaper.

I say this not to show how virtuous we are, but DH and I have always been like this. The first thing we did when we got engaged was go to an auction sale and buy a brand new bed and several pieces of antique furniture. The bed was a fraction of its price in the shops. The antique desk, make-up box, and most ofthe books we have still.

I am on my way to visit DGC next week. DGD is going to get a second hand pair of walking boots, that I bought ages ago and have rarely worn, if she doesn't want them DDiL certainly does - we are all the same shoe size. DGS will get a book from our local secondhand bookshop.

A fair number of the implements in my kitchen drawers have plastic handles on metal working ends and I have no plastic spoons, although I do have a set of plastic measuring spoons that I have had 40 years or more.

When all the other kids are getting so many toys etc if you don’t get the same for yours they are deprived. Do they really or do parents and grandparents use this excuse to justify their expenditure on tat, because they are competing in the parent/grandparent stakes, not the children.

I’m not the cook in our house but I do know that all the kitchen utensils are recycled plastic or bamboo. We have a set of recycled metal pans.