Members of the Abingdon Carbon Cutters (Cutting Plastic) group were encouraging people to unwrap produce outside the large Supermarket on the Marcham Road in Abingdon this morning as part of a Mass Unwrap.
After removing single-use plastics from their shopping, customers could put purchases into their own containers, bags etc. The plastics were collected and returned to the supermarket. One lady brought back all the plastic packaging she had collected this year.
The emphasis was on the unnecessary plastic, not the supermarket.
The hope is to encourage the customers and the supermarket and its suppliers to reduce single-use plastics.
There has already been a huge reduction in the use of single use plastic shopping bags.
‘There has already been a huge reduction in the use of single use plastic shopping bags.’
We used to reuse our cheapo bags, so they were never actually single use. Now we quite often have to buy ‘non-single use’ plastic bags instead which I’m guessing are a lot less biodegradable than the old ones! The old ones used to disintegrate to dust if left in my garage for about a year! These newer ones won’t!
Another con that we’ve been led into that is making a lot of money for someone.
In the States they use recycled paper bags. Why don’t the shops supply these for shopping. They are biodegradeable.
I agree, Janet.
And how much land do we have to give over to growing trees for papers bags? It is easy to point to what looks like a simple solution but they often have other consequences
Also – the plastic wrapping has been shown to improve shelf life. We must balance shelf life with an increase in food waste and therefore a requirement for extra food production. There are no single easy solutions to this problem.
i was told years ago that the American Indians always planted a tree when they felled one. There is a wisdom we ignore in our quest for strawberries in February.
“The old ones used to disintegrate to dust if left in my garage for about a year”
That’s part of the problem. The ‘dust’ is now a microplastic that stands no chance of being recovered / recycled.