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Comment by gremloni | Hacker News Reader

It’s actually easier than you think to mostly cut out plastic from food and drink. If you mostly cook at home— use paper/cloth bags at the grocery store, buy unprocessed foods, get meat, fish, deli, cheese etc paper wrapped, get drinks in aluminum or glass bottles, use only glass to store and drink water with at home. Some plastic use on processed foods is unavoidable but I’m trying to reduce exposure as much as possible. Another thing is to switch out your shampoo, soaps, dish washing liquid etc. for EWG certified products with no pthalates, parabens etc. Also vinegar instead of disinfectants to clean surfaces in the home.

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Lots of 'paper' wrapping use a thin coat of plastic to keep the paper from leaking, at least where I live. Glass bottles are pretty rare for drinks these days, though avoiding sugary drinks and drinking tap water instead of bottle water fixes much of that (well, that and alcohol, I suppose).

Also, not sure why you would recommend vinegar instead of alcohol. Vinegar is barely a disinfectant, and often leaves residue of its own.

Any recently-built home probably has plastic water supply pipes throughout. They're crazy easy (so, less and less-skilled labor required, so cheaper) to install, and the material's cheap. Unless you custom-build and pay a lot extra for copper, that's almost certainly what you're getting.

Most anything canned in aluminum or steel is in contact with the plastic liner that ~all cans have. Veggies, beans, sauces, beer, et c.

> Glass bottles are pretty rare for drinks these days

You pay extra for it, but you can still easily find mineral water in glass. Soda, too, at least for Coca Cola and a bunch of alternative brands, is easy to find in glass. Beer and wine, obviously, though, at least for wine you pay a premium to get low-end wine in glass rather than in a plastic bag ("box wine").

But many don’t. It’s usually a wax backing at my grocery store.

Glass isn’t all that uncommon and aluminum is ubiquitous.

Alcohol works too, just make sure it has no methanol that kids and pets might lick.

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