How can we get rid of plastic waste?

It looks as though customer 'pester power' can work! We need to make our preferences known to whoever supplies us with goods that we don't want extraneous or plastic packaging.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42704291

would love an alternative to the poo bags that I use religiously. Anyone supply bio degradable bags?
Hate to see dog bags discarded and if i'm on a country walk will always dispose by using a stick to knock off pathway into bracken. Hate to think where all the dog bags are emptied by the council?

What about using biodegradable nappy sacks instead of poo bags? They're widely available. We use them to dispose of solid waste from our cats' litter tray.

Iceland have announced they are to totally replace all their plastic packaging. It will take 5 years though.
DH told me that earlier today - when I started quizzing him on how, when etc he said he didn't know, he wasn't their MD.

How will they package frozen food - does anyone know?
Well done Iceland, let's hope that others follow.

They will simply change it to cardboard, I think the report said.

I had a grapefruit juice and soda last night and, before I could stop her, the waitress had plonked in a plastic stirrer.
There’s an obvious example of something that can easily be replaced by a thin wooden spatula or, even better, nothing at all. Just convincing that particular chain of hotels that getting rid of stirrers and straws would help. I’ll send Premier inn an e-mail in the morning.?

Mumsnet has caught up!
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3141550-to-not-use-the-little-fruit-and-veg-bags

If we had been shoppng in the 40s and 50s, we'd have taken with us a basket or a leather, fabric or "rexine" bag. The shop assistant would have weighed our our potatoes and poured them into the bag, then our onions and carrots, then our sprouts, cooking apples and eating apples. She (or he( mwouild have totted up the cost as they went on apaper bag. If we were buying half a pound ofbiscuits (loose from a tin) they'd have gone in that paper bag. If not, it would have been used for the next person to buy something that really needed to be kept clean. If we were extra fussy, we kept a few paper bags and took them with us for the more dainty vegetables.

Meranwhile, we took our shopping home, transferred the veg to a vegetable rack in the larder and - wait for it, this is the important bit - washed them when we were going to use them. Surely we still do that washing bit? If so, why do they need to all be in little sterile separate plastic bags? And if we prefer them that way, why not keep back a few clean bags from the recycling/landfill to use again?

MacDonalds are going to do away with plastic by 2025, they have announced.

Fruit and veg in plastic bags get all sweaty and unpleasant. To stop this happening the supermarkets now have chiller units in their fruit and vegetable racks

That's only another seven years - do they have a large stock of packaging I wonder?

Did anyone watch the BBC programme 'Inside the Factory' the other evening? They featured the Ribena/Lucozade factory - all their bottles are made from recycled plastic. The plastic is recycled in The Netherlands from other plastic bottles and so the cycle continues.

Do keep up Asda.......one of their branches near me stopped selling loose fruit and veg last autumn. I popped in today and the only loose items were bananas and carrots. As a result you have to buy the amount they decide when often you might only want a small quantity.

Where are the more upmarket shops? I would have thought they might lead the way..

I remember my mum buying f&v from the greengrocer, with the different items wrapped in newspaper. Tomatoes (only bought in summer!) went into brown paper bags, and bananas and oranges went in loose.

I have emailed Ocado to ask if at least one of a group of items could be in recyclable packaging and that it could be marked with a clear green R so we could spot it. So we have the choice of ordering that even if the produce did not store so well have also emailed the Times to see if they could wrap their supplements up in paper..
As someone said pester them.

Perhaps if fruit and veg is not available except in packaging then shoppers could remove all the packaging after paying and before leaving the till point and leave it on the conveyor belt.
They may get the message.
However, most of them do sell loose fruit and veg.

There's a Dutch foundation called the Ocean Cleanup. It was started by a man called Boyan Slat, who's now 23. It started when he was diving in Greece when he was 16 and saw more plastic than fish.

He has worked out a way to clean up a lot of the plastic in the oceans, has crowdfunded the money he needs and is just about to deploy a test cleanup beam in the North Sea. I don't think I can do it justice with a write-up, but here's a link to a video explaining how it works. It's a remarkable story.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=du5d5PUrH0I

Yes, I first heard of Boyan Slat a couple of years ago and think his system is amazing. But it doesn't solve the problem of plastic waste, as several comments below the video note.

We have to stop plastic going into the sea now as there is more going in than this system can realistically hope to retrieve.

What are we going to do with the retrieved plastics as a great many of them are not currently recyclable

What about the fragments of plastic from broken up old waste that are too small to be captured and what about the microplastics which are currently being used, which can be ingested by fish and other marine creatures and which cause them to starve because they fill the stomach without providing any nutrition

I think we have a long, long way to go yet.

There is a article in the paper today saying that London is going to install water fountains around the city to try to reduce the use of plastic water bottles. That sounds like a good idea for other cities to follow.

Last week, as I was standing by the fruit and veg section at Waitrose and finding that even loose items needed to be put in a plastic bag, I had a light bulb moment.

Instead of tieing the bag tightly after I had put the veg in the bag then tearing it open when I got home and recycling the plastic. I tied a looser knot, undid it when I got home and last week's bags are in my shopping bag ready to be reused when I go shopping tomorrow. With care I reckon that I should be able to reuse these bags ten times or more before they are recycled..

Good idea, M0nica - I re-use our re-cyclable bags too, but only once or twice eg instead of clingfilm etc. But we could take them with us and use when next shopping for fruit and veg.

www.change.org/p/un-secretary-general-ant%C3%B3nio-guterres-accept-the-trash-isles-as-an-official-country-help-protect-our-oceans

Supermarket shelves are groaning with wet wipes and plastic spray bottles for cleaning umpteen different things. I used to buy a packet of Flash add hot water and use it for floors, paintwork work tops, the lot.
Bring Back Flash! You know it makes sense!

I had an idea a few years ago that we should all be issued with one biro which would be replaced [or refilled] when it ran out. Is anyone else as guilty as me of having drawers full of biros ...?

yes, and it is ridiculous. YES refills for sure.

Toothbrushes are also a massive source of pollution. Bamboo ones are becoming very popular here- but also plastic ones with a replaceable head- same for washing up brushes - keep the handle, snap new head on from time to time. So so simple.

In our French supermarket, I also buy refills for bleach, conditioner, hand washing liquids, dishwash liquid, etc- still plastic but much much less- and as they go into super modern incineration plants that produce energy- and not landfill, no problem.

And there is just no need for all those bottles of washing liquid - why not go back to powder in cardboard box- works just as well.

One of the main disasters though, is disposable nappies. Here towns and local GVT give grants for families to get started with modern shaped re-usable nappies- and for people to start small businesses for collection and delivery of such for those who would prefer. Originally, washable nappies of the old type, with old front loaders- used too much water and energy- but modern washing machines make modern shaped re-usable a real and simple alternative.

As we pay by weight here for refuse- it is a huge incentive.