Eldergays, what did they do in the days before single use plastics became popular?

People didn't use straws all the time--I do remember that. You would get them at some places but not as many places as you do now. And you often got waxed paper starws (which unfortunately go soggy pretty fast)

Food and other things were not wrapped in plastic nearly so much before the Tylenol serial killings in Chicago--that changed everything.

Grocery bags used to only be paper.

The big thing to my mind that has always been single use plastic is garbage bags. I still don't see how if Canada bans them what people will use in their place. Paper bags just don't work.

We had boxes on our porch. Milk and cream came in glass. Ice cream came in cardboard. Someone named Charles delivered chips in tin canisters. There were all returned and reused.

When I was a kid, you could see the age of the glass that was a bottle of Coke, frequently.

What about things like shampoo and other toiletries?

Plastic was generally something you avoided as much as possible, because it was simply seen as tacky.

If something came packaged in plastic (like shampoo), you just threw the empty container out afterwards. It was like recycling today, but without the recycling bin. It just went in the trash.

^^ I appear to have completely misread the OP.

[bold]Someone call the manager - -

Shampoo was always in a plastic bottle. However, I probably grew up using only bar soap. Very few people had liquid soap. My shaving cream still comes in aluminium.

Up until the early 1960s, most markets boxed your groceries in—cardboard boxes (hence the term [italic]boxboys.)[/italic] Empty boxes that once contained Clorox, Campbell's soup, and other products were stacked along the inside front wall of most American supermarkets, near the checkstands. As the checker rang up your purchases, the boxboy would put them in the boxes. This all made perfect sense. Of course, there were paper bags for smaller purchases. This was in the days before recycling, so once the boxes were brought home, they'd be flattened and tossed out with the trash. Occasionally one would survive. My family's Christmas ornaments are still stored in a 1957 cardboard Del Monte fruit cocktail carton.

All toiletries, including shampoo, used to come in glass bottles or jars. Toothpaste came in metal tubes. The lids and caps were metal. There was only bar soap, which came wrapped in paper. TP came in a paper wrapper. Medicines were in glass, including a glass eye dropper for liquids.

[quote]r7 This was in the days before recycling, so once the boxes were brought home, they'd be flattened and tossed out with the trash.

They could also be broken up and tossed in the fire, if you had a fireplace.

People had incinerators either in the basement or back yard. They burned their paper and cardboard. The metal and glass was put in the trash, and it went to the city dump. Or you dumped it out in the woods. Except during WWII, when metal was collected by Boy Scouts for the war effort.

I recall the transition to plastic. The glass was heavy as all hell. Plastic weighed next to nothing. But the thing is, glass mostly got recycled and to this day plastics barely do.

All pop and beer in CT was deposit when i was growing up.

I spent part of my childhood in a developing country, so although I am not an eldergay, I remember the aforementioned milk and soda in glass bottles, ketchup also in glass bottles, toothpaste in aluminum tubes, and moisturizers and powders frequently in glass or metal canisters (although shampoo was in plastic). Liquid soap wasn't used. Only powder detergent and dishwashing soap. Paper towels were not a thing, we used old towels or rags. Paper napkins were rarely used. My mum had a few sturdy reusable shopping bags. Veggies were sold without plastic wrappings, although they did give them to you In plastic bags if they were things like peas. If you bought things like dried beans, sugar, or other dry groceries, the man would weigh it out for you and make a paper sack for it. Cookies had a waxed paper wrapping. People just had less stuff, so less need for plastic. All of this changed rapidly with modernization.

Glass isn't getting recycled much anymore in much of the US, R11. It has to be sorted by color and type and transported to the recycler and then to end users. It ends up cheaper to make new glass.

About 10 years ago, an old drugstore's warehouse contents was sold off. My friend bought some odd boxes with stuff dating back to the 1950s. A couple contained old toiletries including cream rinse and shampoo, hair tonic, setting lotion, etc. All these products were in glass bottles and jars. I used a bottle of the shampoo. It was still okay, based on soap rather than detergent.

R7 Summed it up as I remember it. I just hope that governments don't go too far with plastic bans, it started with single use plastic bags and they seem to keep adding on more plastic products until it's going to be tedious trying to manage without.

Oh also, fast food (street food not today's chain stuff) came in newspaper or books (it would be cool to read it after). I realize that's probably not hygienic. The cups were made of moulded leaves, and rhe spoons were wood.

R7 they still do that at our local store (Canada)

[quote]Shampoo was always in a plastic bottle.

Nooo, it wasn’t.

I’m barely old enough to remember a lot of things like that being in glass containers. Even the ubiquitous brown bottles of cough syrup are plastic now. It feels a bit trashy.

Food items such as yogurt were packed in waxed cardboard containers.

As kids w had to pick up the milk and orange juice in glass containers from the corner delivery spot.

Hey, it didn't break!

[quote]What about things like shampoo and other toiletries?

Glass was used, which was dangerous to use in the shower. I remember my mom used Breck shampoo, which was in a glass bottle. When my sister washed her hair in the shower, my mom always put some Breck shampoo in a paper Dixie cup for my sister. My mom didn't want my sister getting injured in case she dropped the glass bottle.

Putting shampoo in glass bottles was absurd.

Waxed paper was used to wrap sandwiches, which were then placed in small paper bags, or metal lunch boxes, for children to carry to school. Lunch boxes had small glass and metal thermos bottles for drinks. (I remember having, first, a Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox, then later one with Roy Rogers, both now valuable collector’s items, though I lost them long ago.)

Wax was used to seal paper for many containers in stores. Ice cream was always in paper boxes. Tin foil was used to cover bowls of leftovers. Glass pitchers were used to contain drinks, often with matching glasses. Ashtrays were mostly metal or glass. A lot of toys in the 50’s and 60’s were plastic, play sets, soldiers, and dolls. Toy guns were made of metal and plastic. (I loved cap pistols!)

My father used to tie up accumulated newspapers with twine, which were later picked up by someone. We had a trash burner outside near the garage to burn kitchen trash. We also used to burn leaves, until all burning was forbidden by the township. Then we started a mulch heap, and my father started burning trash in the living room fireplace.

[quote]Putting shampoo in glass bottles was absurd.

No way. Plastic is low-class.

Thete were no plastic garbage bags. We used to use paper grocery bags to hold the kitchen garbage. My mother would put a folded old newspaper in the bottom to keep moisture from reaching the bottom. It was thrown out every couple days. Smaller trash containers such as bathroom wastebaskets had no liners.