Alternatives to plastic wrapping

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Alternatives to plastic wrapping
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jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28238
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 04 9:04 pm Post subject:

nettie wrote:

Strangely I find that green leafy veg and salad seem to keep better wrapped in plastic.

Why strange? Plastic is a recycling issue partially because of its inert non reactive nature.

jema

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 04 9:11 pm Post subject:
I just found it strange because some other stuff seems to go off more quickly!!! No scientific reason for me finding it strange I'm afraid

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 8:37 am Post subject:

When I were litter, I mean, little...we used to buy most fruit and veg from the market in town because we could walk there, it's only when my parents wound up living within walking distance of a giant Tesco that they started going there. Everything was given in a brown paper bag and any of them that were still dry folded up and reused for lunches, cakes, you name it.

Now I notice that the market nearest me, and quite a few others, favour horrible thin plastic carriers, however little you buy. There are still a few stalls with paper bags but not nearly enough. These are no use to man or beast...they often don't even last the journey home.

In fact now I think of it...in the same house where we walked to town we did our daily shopping at a parade which had a butcher (very friendly, lovely sausage rolls), baker, greengrocer, grocer, newsagent, and one of those hardware stores the size of a cupboard but from which you could mysteriously find everything you might want that wasn't edible - and it took hooooouuurs to go around because my mum talked to eeeeeeveryone

. I must go back and see if they're still there or have been replaced by a Somerfield or something

To be reminiscing at my age. What is the world coming to?

Guest

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 12:42 pm Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

it took hooooouuurs to go around because my mum talked to eeeeeeveryone

Oh yeah mine too!
We lived in flats and knew everybody else who lived there .It was a nice atmosphere though. Now I live in a road with about twice as many houses as there were flats back then, we only know about 7 families and we have been here for nearly 16 years.

culpepper

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 638
Location: Kent

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 12:45 pm Post subject:
oops sorry forgot to log in again! Thats me above

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 12:51 pm Post subject:
Must admit the worst thing about where we live is not having a decent parade of shops

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 1:38 pm Post subject:

For Christmas I got a reusable shopping bag in that woven chequed plastic, for me and my little girl's 'adventures' to the market. I took it with me to morrisons the other day and it was much easier than using four carrier bags that don't quite fit everything properly.

In terms of plastic use it is hard to get away from the ubiquitous bag. We try to use aslternatives to cling film and seem to use plastic containers and old jars to keep stuff. I've found cheese in greaseproof in a plastic tub keeps well. For all those tomato/onion things it's a matter of discipline and thawing it out and warming in a pan ratheer then the microwave. However I tend to be indisciplined.

Is there any reason why you shouldn't freeze stuff in old jam jars sauce bottles etc? I often put stock, soup, goose fat and similar in them but my MIL looked at me as if i was juggling a live grenade. They've never broke or is there another danger?

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 1:59 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

Must admit the worst thing about where we live is not having a decent parade of shops

Popped over to my parents today in Headingley and while the students are away it's a great place. However it has changed so much in 15 years. When I was growing up you could by shoes, books, choose from four butchers, four greengrocers and a game dealer; buy cheese, cold cuts, loose tea and coffee beans and other stuff in shops that are now called delis. Along side the usual mixture of Boots, opticians, banks, building societies, couple of estate agents, a bike shop, two small supermarkets, pet shop, hair dressers/barbers, real stationary (not greeting cards), four pubs and one tea shop who also did cakes for special occasions, four restaurants, heel bar and key cutter etc. Your could even buy soap cut to size off a bigf block witha cheese wire, in1990!

Now there are any number of places to get coffee, sandwiches, wraps, burgers and the full international spread of takeaways, a dozen charity shops of every persuasion and malady, 5 letting agents, 5 estate agents, 7 pubs, 3 off licences, half a dozen bistros (well they're really bars but with eating areas to get round the planning rules), several hair salons, one small Safeways/Morrisons supermarket (which sells takeaway food: some veg at the back) and greeting cards, one green grocer, no butchers, all sorts of trinkets to push through and hang from bits of my body, a tanning studio, 2 banks, and a 'games outlet'.

Now this means Headingley may be more fun, and it could be dull in the past, but its about as usefull as a chocolate teapot for everyday living. So everyone drives to the big supermarkets.....

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Dec 30, 04 2:07 pm Post subject:
Makes you mad doesn't it?

McLay455

Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Posts: 89
Location: West of Scotland

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 8:43 am Post subject:
Co-op plastic bags are 100% degradable see www.co-op.co.uk for details

tinyclanger

Joined: 27 Dec 2004
Posts: 190
Location: in the kitchen, baking

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 1:04 pm Post subject:
[quote]Really shops are to blame for plastic bag waste Ok, but people use them...supply & demand! (how do I do quotes?)

Sarah D

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 2584

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 2:14 pm Post subject:
Shops aren't to blame at all - people can say no, it's easy to do.

tinyclanger

Joined: 27 Dec 2004
Posts: 190
Location: in the kitchen, baking

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 2:24 pm Post subject:
exactly...cheers Sarah

culpepper

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 638
Location: Kent

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 2:30 pm Post subject:

[quote="tinyclanger"]

Quote:

Really shops are to blame for plastic bag waste
Ok, but people use them...supply & demand!

(how do I do quotes?)

to quote ....
click quote and make sure your own comments are below the last thing written in the box.

I still think a lot of the blame is with shops giving them away for free. People are far less keen to take home loads of bags when they have to pay 3p each for them. In Holland they dont give carriers unless asked for, so most people have shopping bags.
I know you can say no but it seems sort of petty for me to take all my shopping back out of their bags if they have helpfully packed half my shopping while I was doing the other half. I do say 'no thanks,we have our own bags' where possible though.

tinyclanger

Joined: 27 Dec 2004
Posts: 190
Location: in the kitchen, baking

Posted: Sat Jan 01, 05 2:52 pm Post subject:

When I go shopping I usually have the car with me, as I live in the sticks with no shops within walking distance and usually shop on the way home from work, visiting friends etc. I keep my cotton shoppping bags in the boot of the car all the time so I never forget them and I usually have a recycling box from our kerbside recycling scheme in there too.
The cotton bags get used when I go to the deli or the farm shop and the box gets used at the supermarket.
At the supermarket, when shop assistants say "would you like a bag for that?" I take great pleasure in saying " no thanks, I've got my car" ....get puzzeled looks all the time

Then I put everything in the trolly, wheel it to the car and stuff the lot into the box.
Recycling boxes...what a useful multi use item
Tiny

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