General Chat

We have long taken our own canvas bags to the grocery store, finally they did away with their plastic bags, with laws being brought in banning their use.

Till March 2020 and the pandemic. Suddenly ONLY their plastic bags could be used, no "own" bags by health authority rulings.

We've been back to using our bags for many months now, either canvas ones or the "special" long-lasting ones sold by the store for $1 or $2 each.

But the problem is still the items they sell .......... whether fruit and veg, open shelf items or frozen. So many of them are packed in plastic including clam shells, and with multiple packaging.

Buying "bulk" in other than fruit and veg was starting to become common in the supermarkets before covid, then "health" considerations did away with them, and they still don't seem to be back.

Ah - the days when milk and fizzy drinks were in glass bottles!
3d back on a Corona bottle! :-D

My Brother and I used to go shopping with Mum in the school holidays, we started with the butchers, newspaper in the bottom of the bag, newspaper over the meat next the vegetables and fruit then butter and eggs etc and lastly the bread often still warm.

Yes and we bought all our fruit and veg from a greengrocer who put it all either in paper bags or our own string bags,no plastic packaging in sight!

Florence in the hebrides

I'm in my 60s and one of 4 children and our Mum recycled and bought fresh goods on a daily basis, it was what we did back then, no bulk buying or panic buying only what was needed.

We've also been recycling for many years, even before our daughter was coming home form school around 1990 telling us what we should be doing :-) We just carried on doing what our parents taught us to do.

But it isn't the glass, the brown paper, etc that is the problem ............... it's all the plastic packaging, the clam shell containers for everything from berries to pharmaceuticals.

We have a super recycling programme here, although one is never quite sure what happens to it after it gets to the recycling depot! But there is still so much that they cannot take!

ZZzzz we have been reusing and recycling for years since i was a little girl. Back then it was nothing to do with climate change but was a way of keeping our own costs down as we were not well off.

Reusing brown paper, saving jars to reuse for homemade jam or storing buttons seeds etc.

You are correct though, we never see how much in % of what as a region or town we are recylcing.Judging by how much is in my blue bin each month is surely an example that we are doing our bit. Until you hear that there is a mountain of glass at the recylcing plant because there is no market for it! So no sure what else we can do?

Maybe if companies were made to show each month their % and targets of recyling we would be able to see which companies are good at recycling and those that are not? Maybe this info is available already, im not sure.

Florence in the hebrides

About climate change, recycling, well there have been things we have been buying for many years and in all that time the packages are still non recycle, we the consumer are doing all that we are asked to do but manufacturers do not AND nothing is said with regard to what we have achieved so far. Rant over thanks x.