If we can cut down on plastic, so can you

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Stuff readers share their tips for cutting down on plastic waste.

We've cut our rubbish by 75 per cent - Amy Campbell

In the past 12 to 18 months I have been actively trying to reduce our household waste. We have reusable shopping bags for the supermarket. I have a small fold-up bag in my handbag to use while I am out and about.

We take soft plastic to the supermarket recycling points. We have switched from liquid soap and shampoo to bars, to reduce the amount of plastic we use.

We've found the biggest waste reduction in our household was made by starting a compost bin. This takes a lot of our food waste which normally would have gone to landfill. We used to put out one to two bags of rubbish a week. Now, we only put out one bag every two weeks.

**READ MORE:

Hundreds of tonnes of plastic bags are recycled each year.

* How plastic bags became the pariah of waste

* Where a plastic bag can get you jailed: The countries getting tough on carriers

* You don't have to go zero waste to make a difference

* Quick, easy ways to cut your plastic bag use**

You don't need bags for the bin - Hanneke Bond

Plastic, food wrappers, needles and syringes are just some items to wash up on Kiwi beaches.

Three months ago we stopped using plastic shopping bags to line our rubbish bins. One amazing and unexpected benefit from this is that our wheelie bin has gone from overflowing on rubbish day, to being half full.

Turns out there is a lot of trapped air inside those bags. Now we can save money by getting a smaller wheelie bin. It's a win-win.

Plastic Bags become … more bags - Michael Shah

What do you do with hundreds of 'single use' plastic shopping bags? Weave them into a practical, hard wearing tote bags.

Weaver Jenni Shah collects plastic bags from neighbours and the local schools. With them, she creates tote bags which are made up of at least 20 individual plastic bags.

The plastic bags are sliced into strips and woven to make a piece of fabric. Coloured cotton is also woven in to create a hard-wearing and colourful fabric which can then be made into a tote bag.

Reuse your bags - Hilary Keen

I reuse the bags from the supermarket for my rubbish bin bag - they fit perfectly. I also take any plastic I use back to the bins in the supermarket. If the plastic can be scrunched up into a ball, it can be placed in a Love NZ Soft Plastic Recycling drop off bin at participating stores. If it can't be scrunched, it should be recycled at home using kerbside collection.

I can collect a bag of plastics every week – it's disgusting - and I realise now how bad that is for the environment. I have been telling everyone to recycle as most people think they can only return supermarket bags.

Think just how much landfill we would save if everyone recycled their soft plastic. If you're going to the supermarket anyway, there's no excuse not to.

It's not just about shopping bags - Vivienne Bishop

If supermarkets really cared about the environment they should look into selling biodegradable bin liners at an affordable price. I would like to use biodegradeable rubbish bags and I would buy them if they were cheaper.

We still need plastic bags to put our rubbish in. What else can we put messy foodstuffs in to take out to our rubbish bins? There are no paper bags available.

The trouble is instead of using the thin plastic supermarket bags which rip easily, we'll now have to use the larger, thicker bin liners. These thicker bags are going to cause more problems for the environment.