Start With the Things You Use Every Day

The kitchen is where most household plastic quietly piles up: a bottle of washing-up liquid here, a cling-filmed cucumber there, a tower of takeaway containers you never quite get rid of. The good news is that the kitchen is also the easiest room in the house to change, because the swaps are tied to tasks you already do several times a day. Habits stick when they attach themselves to something familiar.

Before you buy anything, do a one-week audit. Keep a carrier bag by the bin and put every piece of single-use plastic from your kitchen into it. At the end of the week, tip it out and look. Most households find the same handful of culprits: drinks bottles, produce bags, cling film, cleaning sprays and packaging around dry goods. Those five are your targets. Everything else can wait.

Switch to Refillable Bottles and Concentrates

Washing-up liquid, hand soap, surface spray and laundry detergent are among the easiest things to buy loose. Many towns now have a refill shop or a refill station inside a health food shop or hardware store, where you take your own bottle and pay by weight. Buy a decent bottle once — a 500ml glass bottle with a pump for soap, a sturdy plastic one you already own for the sink — and refill it from then on.

• Buy concentrates where you can. A small bottle of concentrated washing-up liquid or multi-surface cleaner diluted in your own spray bottle cuts the plastic per use dramatically.
• Keep a spare. One bottle in use, one clean and waiting. You will never be caught short and reach for a supermarket bottle in a panic.
• Reconsider the store cupboard basics. Bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar and citric acid come in cardboard boxes or paper bags and clean almost everything in the kitchen. A spray of diluted white vinegar handles worktops, sinks and splashbacks beautifully.

Buy Loose Produce Where It's Practical

Loose fruit and veg is usually cheaper than the pre-packed version, and it lets you buy exactly what you need. Potatoes, onions, carrots, apples and bananas are already loose in most supermarkets; the plastic tends to creep in around soft fruit, salad and pre-cut vegetables.

Keep three or four lightweight mesh or cotton produce bags in your coat pocket, your handbag and the boot of the car. The best reusable bag is the one you actually have with you. For mushrooms and herbs, a paper bag from the shop works well, or take a small cloth bag and transfer them to a container at home. If you use a greengrocer, market stall or veg box scheme, ask whether they can leave the packaging off — many will happily do so. Online supermarket orders often let you request no bags for loose items, so tick that box.

Replace Cling Film with Beeswax Wraps and Covers

Cling film is used for seconds and lasts for centuries, which makes it a satisfying thing to give up. Beeswax wraps — cotton cloth coated in beeswax, jojoba oil and resin — mould around a bowl or a half-lemon with the warmth of your hands and can be used again and again.

• Use them for cheese, cut vegetables, sandwiches, bowl tops and covering a plate of leftovers.
• Care for them properly. Wash in cool water with a little mild soap, never hot, and air dry. They last about a year; when they stop clinging, they can be refreshed or composted.
• Not everything needs a wrap. A plate balanced on top of a bowl, a clean tea towel over proving dough, or a lidded box does the same job for free.
• Silicone lids and fabric bowl covers are worth having for anything that goes in the fridge repeatedly, such as a bowl of soup or leftover curry.

Choose Glass and Stainless for Storage

Glass containers with bamboo, cork or stainless-steel lids are the workhorses of a low-waste kitchen. They don't hold onto the smell of last night's curry, they don't stain, they're oven-safe and they look good enough to take to the table. Clip-top jars are perfect for pasta, rice, flour, oats, nuts and spices, and they make it obvious when you're running low.

You don't need to buy a matching set. Save your pasta sauce and jam jars, soak off the labels, and reuse them. Buy secondhand glass containers from charity shops or online marketplaces, and label everything with a chalk pen or a strip of masking tape. If you freeze in glass, leave a couple of centimetres of headspace, let food cool completely first, and thaw in the fridge rather than on a hot radiator.

Make the Changes Stick

Keep a refill kit by the front door — clean bottles, mesh bags, a couple of jars — so it travels with you rather than sitting forgotten in a cupboard. Write a running list on the fridge of what needs refilling, and top up when you're already passing the shop rather than making a special trip.

Most importantly, use up what you already have. Throwing away perfectly good plastic containers to buy glass ones defeats the point. Wash them, use them until they crack, then replace them with something that will last. Aim for progress, not purity: a household that refills two bottles and buys loose carrots every week will cut more plastic over a year than one that tries to be perfect for a fortnight and gives up.