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Well, going as plastic free as is possible.

My green bin is emptied every fortnight and it is rarely more than a quarter full, but that is still too much. So, I have changed my shopping habits.

I now buy my fruit and veg loose from the supermarket and greengrocers and place it in my cotton shopping bags. The cost has gone up slightly, but the quality has gone through the roof. The same applies to meat and fish from the butcher and fish market - the butcher even gives me free bones for making stock / gravy. My milk is in totally recyclable Tetra packs and spices come from the pick-your-own bins in the Asian shop.

Another positive is that shopping has become less of a chore.

A zero waste supermarket opened in Birmingham city centre last year, you take along your own containers and fill them and it was promoted as being innovative (and looks to appeal to the hipster market) but I remember that there used to be scoop and save shops around in the 80s where, had you the mind to do it, you could fill your containers with whatever you needed.

One thing I've cut down on in recent months is water bottles. I love a drink of water but our tap water doesn't taste very nice so I'd buy bottled water, 2 litre bottles and a pack of single 500ml bottles. I then started buying sparkling water so that we could make fizzy drinks with various squashes...so our recycling bin contained quite a number of water bottles each fortnight.
I bought a Soda Stream last November and it's used daily and apart from perhaps one or two squash bottles per month, we've totally cut down on plastic bottle waste. The empty cartridge is returned for refilling when a new one is purchased.

A new scoop and save shop recently opened here jo but I haven't been use to years ago but I always spent a fortune in there and Bill used to go mad buying the sweets and chocolates I personally wish shops used Brown paper bags .

Our Morrisons does Saundra

Hi right shelly I shop Morrisons one line and they dont thanks anyway

I'm trying to go as plastic free as possible. Where possible, veg is bought lose and packed in one of the nets I bought online; ear buds are the ones with a paper stick. I'm finishing off whatever liquid soaps I have and will then be reverting to bar soap that comes in cardboard boxes. Same for shampoo etc; once I have finished what I have at home I'll be moving to hairbars - my sister and her family have been using them for a while now and swear by them. The one thing I need to try and see how I get on with is changing from liquid to powder for the washing machine - I was always told that the liquid rinses out better and given we have a tendency towards eczema in our family that's one thing I'm going to have to balance up plastic free vs health?

I recently had a water softener installed so that's my water sorted and I will look to invest in a soda stream because I prefer sparkling to still water.

Lots of things one can do; some very easy others less so..

Workingman wrote:My milk is in totally recyclable Tetra packs a

I have mine delivered and it comes in glass bottles - love it!

I read that many more of us are now trying to reduce our plastic use. We are not of the evangelical anti-plastic bring-back-the-old-days brigades, just fairly normal people. We recognise that to go totally plastic free is impossible, but we also find that for many things it is easily doable.

Like Jo and Ria I am also a fizzy drinks fan - soda and lime anyone - so am also looking at a soda stream or similar. I have a 500ml stainless steel bottle flask for when I am out and about so still or fizzy are not a problem.

Ria, I also have eczema problems and have found the Almat non-bio powder from Aldi works a treat. I have not had a problem with it rinsing out. I wash the outlet filter fairly regularly and it mostly just fibres, but maybe that helps.

Workingman wrote:Ria, I also have eczema problems and have found the Almat non-bio powder from Aldi works a treat. I have not had a problem with it rinsing out. I wash the outlet filter fairly regularly and it mostly just fibres, but maybe that helps.

Huge help, thanks Frank! Esp as my other criteria for any cleaning / beauty products is that they have to be cruelty free; and all of Aldi own brand is... so double win!

Yes, Almat non-bio powder is good! I've switched to that recently