Reduce plastic

The most benefit for the environment is to reduce the amount of plastic from the beginning and choose other alternatives.

Use natural materials

• Avoid plastic when shopping for new items. You can often choose a more environmentally friendly material, such as glass or wood.
• Replace single-use plastic with alternatives that can be reused, preferably in materials other than plastic. For example, beeswax cloth instead of plastic wrap or stainless steel for your outing.
• Bring your own cloth, paper or plastic bags to the store.
• Bring your own lunch box and mug when you buy takeaway food and drinks. It is permitted under food legislation to bring your own box, but the restaurant has the right to decide whether they want to accept it.

Choose the right kind of plastic

• Choose the best plastic possible when you need to buy something made of plastic.
• Choose products made from recycled plastic, such as garbage bags.
• Choose products in bio-based plastic when recycled plastic is not suitable, such as diapers and other sanitary products.
  Avoid compostable plastic. It is not designed for recycling.
• Choose plastic items made from PET, polyethylene and polypropylene plastic and not the inferior varieties PVC, polystyrene and polycarbonate plastic.

Clean out the toy box

• Avoid buying toys manufactured before 2013. They risk containing certain harmful phthalates, which are a common plasticizer in plastic.
• Get rid of all soft plastic toys that smell, are sticky and feel greasy on the surface.

Non-toxic mattress protectors and bibs

• Softened vinyl plastic can contain harmful phthalates. Since 2007, the worst phthalates have been banned in childcare products, but they may be present in older versions.
• Use a mattress protector made of a different plastic than softened vinyl plastic.
• Use a bib made of a material other than PVC or vinyl.

Think carefully about which baby bottle you choose

• Plastic baby bottles that were on the market until 2011 may contain the now banned substance bisphenol A.
• Get rid of old plastic baby bottles.
• Do not heat baby formula directly in a plastic baby bottle. Even new baby bottles can leak small doses of plastic chemicals.
• Even better, choose a glass baby bottle.

Reuse and use plastic correctly

• Use your plastic items and goods for as long as possible, as long as they are safe and functional.
• Leave functional, safe and good plastic items for recycling. Old items made of PVC, also called vinyl, should not be reused.
• When you heat food, the risk of hazardous substances being released from the plastic and ending up in the food increases.

Sort plastic at source

Plastic that does not contain harmful substances should be recycled so that it can be used as raw material in new plastic products.

• Sort your plastic packaging and take it to a recycling station or to the environmental room's plastic collection. You don't need to wash the packaging, it's enough that it's empty.
• You can take plastic items that aren't packaging to a recycling center, such as broken garden furniture and crashed sleds.

All plastic packaging to the right place, Stockholm Water and Waste website