Wish traditional seed suppliers would up their game

[toomanytommytoes]

Two or three of the companies I ordered last year's Christmas presents from have started using biodegradable packing peanuts. They went into the hot compost and disappeared very quickly. Taste a bit like Wotsits.

On eBay most of the big seed sellers charge 99p or less for P&P, so the �1.95 from T&M and other giants seems a bit cheeky. Interestingly, T&M don't charge for delivery on seed packets from their eBay shop.

[Babru]

I've tried loo roll insides instead of root trainers for my sweet peas, but they disintegrated a bit too quickly. Some things are better made of plastic, as long as you take care of it and reuse it time after time. I think it's this disposable culture we've fallen into that is the big problem, not plastic as such.

[burnie]

Plastic really is a massive problem, have a walk along a beach, the same rubbish will still be here for decades and we are still adding to the heap, we must stop plastic packaging, it is not needed.

[quanglewangle]

Plastic really is a massive problem, have a walk along a beach, the same rubbish will still be here for decades and we are still adding to the heap, we must stop plastic packaging, it is not needed.

Certainly this is a problem. However, I can't help thinking that if it is to be sorted we need to know how the rubbish gets there: it can't all be from beach visitors - there is simply too much; I can't believe folks in northern Europe dump household plastic rubbish on beaches - too few of us live near enough to the sea to account for all of it; perhaps it is dumped from cruise ships but the reputational damage would be too great to risk it.

My suspicion is that there are places in the world where garbage trucks back up to sea cliffs or river banks and tip. If that is the case there really is nothing we can do as individuals in our disposal habits to tackle the problem.

This is not to say there aren't good reasons for us to reuse and recycle. I am just saying that I don't think this is the way to clean up the sea or beaches

[bario1]

It doesn’t really matter how it ends up on the beach or in the sea or even in a landfill site - it’s the fact that it’s going to be around for another 10000 years or whatever after the five minutes it was useful to us that’s the problem...

[Penellype]

Plastic really is a massive problem, have a walk along a beach, the same rubbish will still be here for decades and we are still adding to the heap, we must stop plastic packaging, it is not needed.

The biggest problem is not the plastic (which is a very useful material for a huge number of applications), it is the people who think it is acceptable to simply chuck it on the floor/in the hedge/in the ditch/in the sea.... whether they be individuals eating a takeaway, criminals fly tipping or companies (here or abroad) disposing of it in an inappropriate manner. Yes there is far too much unnecessary single use plastic and we need to cut down on it, but if everyone disposed of their rubbish and litter correctly (including other materials such as paper, bottles, cans etc) the world would be a much pleasanter place to live in.

[bramble]

Like everyone else on here I am still using the plastic pots and containers I own.
I wont be buying any more when they disintegrate.
I always save the toilet roll innards and use them for sweetpeas, beans and peas.
I will continue looking for ways to cut down but it wont happen overnight.

[Thelma Sanders]

Not sure how two people could fill a rubbish bin in two weeks let alone one!

I live on my own and because of the rules about what can and can't go in the recycling bin, I still seem to have stuff that has to go to waste..
Their view of what can go into waste is also narrowing, and I don't just mean stuff that should be recycled - so there's household stuff they won't take away, which they used to take quite happily before.
The rules do seem strange at times. Like bottle glass is ok to recycle but broken drinking glasses aren't

[greenishfing]

Even at the recycling point you can get different answers from different staff. Broken greenhouse glass could go in glass skip one day, general waste another.

[toomanytommytoes]

Toughened (borosilicate) glass doesn't melt at the same temperature of normal (soda-lime) glass furnaces, so apparently it contaminates the recycling process.