After I had purchased something at a Dick Smith Electronics store I asked the assistant to get it out of the packaging for me (hard plastic, welded side seams). He did - with a fair bit of effort and cutting his finger in the process. I gave him a bandaid and left the plastic with him.
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The fossil fuel industry apparently understands their business futures as electric cars are rising. Switch to an equally or more environmentally problematic line than merely air pollution …
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The big news at the end of 2017 was that China’s government has banned the importation of plastic waste (Chinese firms will only recycle domestic plastic waste).
This is going to affect many countries who have been shipping their used plastic off to China - news items already in Australia, UK and USA.
So maybe our governments will respond and get real about banning unnecessary plastic.
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The problem with string bags is they could also end up in our oceans potentially trapping and strangling sea life.
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I don’t see every single person throwing dozens of string bags into the ocean every week. That’s the difference between disposable and reusable. One is very unnecessary and destructive, the other is a good solution with much less harmful impacts on the environment. 
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Jumping in to this thread to say that I was appalled at the amount of plastic packaging used on the plane no a recent long haul adventure. We flew three airlines (Etihad, Air France and China Southern), but because they all get their catering from the same places they’re all as bad as each other when it comes to packaging, including:
- plastic lids on the side salads
- glad wrapped crackers (I had a GF meal)
- plastic sealed back for cutlery
- plastic cutlery (non reusable)
- plastic cups for tea/coffee, even when the tray had a reusable coffee cup on it
- and plastic casing for the main meal which I saw was thrown out and not reused
I remember flying when I was younger and there was always metal cutlery, no plastic lids on desserts, using the coffee cups on the tray. It felt so wasteful.
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[quote=“TillySouth, post:55, topic:14132”]
I remember flying when I was younger and there was always metal cutlery, [/quote]
Blame terrorists.
In the old days people also treated air travel as special… These days it’s as special as a bus ride.
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And while I haven’t checked, I suspect that the plaatic is not recycled as it is contaiminated with food, a potential quaratine issue for international flights. Even thiugh marked as potentially recyclable, it is likely the waste is buried or burnt.
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I was flying to the US (on United) not long after the “9/11” terror attacks and all cutlery was supposed to be plastic then. It was for us in Economy, but when disembarking you have to go through Business, and they clearly still had metal cutlery. I guess they thought terrorists would launch their evil deeds in the Economy section!
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Yep - it’s true! They have nice cutlery up in business/first from my slightly-outdated knowledge (my father was a flight attendant until he retired two years ago).
At the very least they should use heavy duty plastics they can wash and reuse!
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Imagine the extra weight of carrying metal cutlery (enough for 3+ meals) for every passenger on an A380…
It’s not like they have enough crew to wash these on board.
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Nothing like a campaign to do away with plastics …
Fail!
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1960’s Australia . Yes way back then.
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And I only thought I was paying for the plastic that made up the bottle but it seems they must be charging me for the plastic in the water as well. Now I know why it is so expensive.
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For those who are interested there are several petitions on Change.org related to reducing plastic packaging, but one that as at the time of this post has over 375,000 signatures see:
If you want here are two more that might interest you as well
And if you haven;t yet seen the damage/waste plastic is creating & producing see this interesting article:
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Fact or Fiction for the game?
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… probably also eats turtles and penguins 
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They are starting to label products that contain no included plastics in the UK. If a product has no included plastic it is allowed to use a mark that indicates this.
The Iceland supermarkets in the UK and the Dutch supermarkets Ekoplaza are starting the use of the “Plastic free” mark. Ekoplaza has also introduced “plastic free goods” aisles.
Perhaps a sign of changes in this plastic smothering and even perhaps a campaign for Choice to take up here.
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