London Environment Strategy consultation

Given the impact of charging on plastic bags, London should take the lead on charges for all non-recyclable/compastable packaging for take away foodstuffs. This will provide momentum for vendors to develop/use non plastic and non polystyrene packaging.

Given the large food company influence on government, similar should apply to coffee cups.

At the same time we can all do our but in buying loose rather than single use plastic packed fruit and vegetable. We do not have to be evangalists, just look in our kitchen waste bin at the end of a shop.

For shop-bought food, I think we need shops switching to more loose produce, combined with city-wide composting.

Also, I notice supermarkets have a harmful habbit of taking 3 or 4 individual items, wrapping them in plastic and selling them as a multi-buy pack for slightly cheaper.  They do this with peppers, tins of beans, soft drink bottles and loads more.  Yet all of them have tills that can create these multi-buy discounts at the checkout based on how many individual things are bought.  The additional layer of plastic is totally redundant.

Takeaway food is a trickier one to solve as usually people want some sort of box or plate to serve it on. We need to encourage the use of bio-degradable materials for these.  Market stalls in Borough Market seem to being doing quite well in that regard, often using forks instead of plastic.

As someone coming from a country where fresh food is much more avilable than here, I find that in London is pretty difficult to buy food that doesn't come in a plastic packaging. Having more fresh food in the supermarkets would mean less packaging. What about local fresh food markets, where you can buy fresh vegetables and fruit. We need more farmers markets. And also make fresh food affordable for people with lower incomes. Don't make fresh food a luxury.

I recycle as much packaging as I can, and aim to avoid single use plastic packaging, but this is not always possible.  I have a worm bin for recycling non-meat food waste.

To achieve better results, really needs to be done systematically at source - maker greener choices easy.  Expecting millions of people to change their behaviour one at a time is slow, inefficient and costly.

I think that London - and England as a whole should move to a single, comprehensive system for reducing packaging, ensuring that what packaging we do have is reused & recycled as much as possible.  A singl recycling system nationally would be much simpler, and, as we see in other European countries is likely to achieve better results at lower cost.  

influencing what people buy and what they do with the packaging is a long term process of social education: short term need for leglislation to police & prosecute an environmentally friendly national food packaging policy

The environment is important to me and I often look for vegetarian options instead of meat dishes on the grounds they are better for my health and are better for the environment (reduce CO2 emissions).  I always look to recycle packaging and food waste, and Sutton Council provides good opportunities for recycling both.  I would like to reduce my plastic footprint when purchasing food etc.  and would continue to use the same water bottle if I had confidence that plastics do not dissolve into the water over time in old plastic bottles.

We sort waste - fruit, vegetable waste and weeds are composted in a special bin in the garden for the garden.

We also sort paper, suitable plastic, bottles and tins in the bins provided.

I'm lucky to have agarden

I feel despair, complete and utter despair! I have and do recycle all plastic and other recyclable waste and avoid using whenever possible. However until Government takes the lead on dealing with this atrocity what people can do is purely a gesture.

The Government is able to make a major positive impact on this by simply introducing “polluter pays” tax on all items that can’t be recycled and then watch the manufacturers stop using them; (overnight)! 

This should have been done 20 years ago by each and every government over the last 20 years! So fed up with all political bodies over this I feel complete and utter despair, especially for future generations!

Re composting:

I am lucky enough to have a garden and compost bins - I do mske my own but am grateful to the council for taking care of things like bones and things that won't break down easily.  I agree with people who say everything should be London wide and co-ordinated. Bring back GLC!!

Brent couincil is very good with recycling but they can't take certain things such as:

polystyrene, cling film , plastic netting, celophane and more.  therefore these things should either be banned or made biodegradable after a year or so.   I already buy biodegradable food waste bags but they are a bit expensive for less well off people.  costs need to be brought down by more mass production, more promotion.

I contacted ASDA about their eco cleaning products.  They not only discotinued them but hardly sell any others; they could easily do more promotions instead of bottles and bottles of dangerous bleach and chemicals.

I've posted this before, but in some places, Such as Sidmouth, all food waste is collected (cooked and raw) and it is used to make biofuels. Surely it would be possible to do the same in London. It would not only reduce landfill, but also provide fuels that would otherwise not be available. I double win.

I certainly try and buy food which isn't pre-packed. Wrapped bananas! I ask you.

It would be great if Wandsworth was providing compost boxes. Also so many people leave plastic bottles on Clapham common during the weeknd. One should have people collecting just plastic bottles. Similarly people leave on the streets cansand plastic bottles. Lots are not collected for recycling. One could have dedicated people walking along the streets to collect thoses.

You need specialised people collecting as unfortunately by experience, even if you put containers separated, the population does not follow the guidance and put all garbages in the same place.

Please abolish double packaging eg tubes in boxes and instead change shelves or shape of tubes for stacking. Toothpaste, tomato puree, make up. 

Re food waste more education on “Sniff and Taste” test rather than accepting too short sell-by dates. Also educate on cooking/freezing left overs. 

Use economic incentives to encourage reduction of packaging – it worked with carrier bags. 

Councils should collect and compost green waste. Camden used to but now they charge for this service which is a laugh considering how high is their council tax already and how terrible a job they do at keeping the streets rubbish free. 

Would really value a reduction in plastic packaging especially for food items. We recycle but would prefer to not to have to  use as much plastic. 

I recycle everything I possibly can and try to buy food that comes in recyclable or compostible packaging, but that’s very difficult to do because so much food comes in containers that cannot be recycled or composted. 

My local independent coffee shop sells all of its products in compostible containers and packaging. There is no good reason why larger chains and supermarkets can’t do the same. It’s ridiculous. They should be made to supply products in compostible or at the very least, recyclable containers. 

When shopping for food I do prefer to choose items with recyclable packaging. I believe, however, that much more could be done by suppliers to increase the use of recyclable packaging or reusable containers. I was very surpirsed and dismayed to learn, for example, that most "paper" coffee cups are not easily recyclable. One of the main culprits are fast-food outlets, but I also believe there is excessive and unnecessary use of non-recyclable plastics in otehr packages food products.

Living in St. James's without a garden it is not easy to arrange to recycle food waste. I would encourage the Assembly to consider how this might be facilitated as I would be happy to comply (we recycle other materials as much as possible).

It would help if Waltham Forest would supply us with recycling bins. 6 room household and no recyling bins after several requests