What we found out in our first Bimonthly Members Webinar

Action on Plastic UK is offering it's members access to join bimonthly webinars with leading changemakers talking about the work they're doing to tackle single-use plastic in their communities. The first of these was held on 21 October 2026, with Naseem Talukdar from Projects Against Plastic talking about their efforts to tackle single-use plastic in the hospitality sector. Read on to find out what Naseem told us.

Projects Against Plastic is a charity based in the South West working with marginal communities to engage them on the topic of plastic pollution and how they can be part of the solution. Naseem told us that businesses that they work with are all firefighting - they all have issues around staffing, VAT, health, hygiene, marketing and are not generally keen to talk about the issue of plastic. 

Projects Against Plastic invites restaurant and takeaway owners to six monthly Curry and Conversation sessions, where a curry is served alongside a conversation, empowering staff in how they can lead in taking action on plastic. 

The UK legislation now means takeaways can’t use polystyrene containers, and so the charity educated businesses on the new law and what alternative products are available for them to use instead. 

The High Sheriff of Bristol is a key supporter and joins the sessions to give recognition awards to businesses who have stayed in touch. The main lesson they’ve learnt is to celebrate small successes.

Naseem shared three test cases:

• In 2019, an idea was raised to remove single-use plastic takeaway containers by switching to tiffin containers. These can be reused by washing. Their video went viral however within 7-8 weeks, people didn’t back the idea - convenience is key for people and they don’t carry a tiffin around with them. It was also an issue for takeaway owners to ensure that the tiffins were fully clean when putting food in. This interrupted their business. Takeaway owners also struggled with knowing whose takeaway orders were whose, as containers weren’t labelled. Naseem said that we need to find a better way of tackling convenience

• Naseem explained that with some takeaways, businesses put in plastic sauce containers along with a salad. Projects Against Plastic worked with these businesses to run a trial whereby customers were given the option whether to have these sauce containers or not. The takeaways found that some people were happy to not have the containers. This saved the businesses money and plastic at the same time. Also as part of the trial, customers were given the option to have their takeaway in an eco-friendly container. This again proved popular

• The third test case Naseem explained was the hidden/invisible plastic. When you think of a takeaway and plastic, you only see the end result - the plastic container. However businesses have a lot more plastic than that. Ingredients such as meats, rice, herbs, breads etc were all packaged in single-use plastic packaging. When talking to staff, the staff were not thinking about this as an issue. Businesses are not offered any recycling for this packaging. So Projects Against Plastic have come up with an idea whereby University students could go into a restaurant / takeaway and collect a week’s worth of their plastic packaging. Students could identify the different types of plastic, how much could be recycled, and what the alternatives could be. This is a future idea and hasn’t been implemented yet.

Naseem finished his presentation reminding us that plastic is not high up on the agenda for businesses. They still have many other issues to deal with, but he is not giving up. The Curry and Conversation sessions run every 6 months, and Naseem wants to ensure businesses can get the support they need for other issues, as well as dealing with plastic. Projects Against Plastic is building trust and relationships in the business community. Once that trust is built, business owners will come on board and work to find solutions to address single-use plastic.

In the Q&A afterwards, there was discussion about Extended Producer Responsibility fees. Plastic packaging manufacturers are being charged with producing this packaging and it’s likely these fees/costs will only be passed down to the businesses such as restaurants and takeaway owners. Naseem said that businesses are struggling already and they will not want to have to pay extra costs for this. 

We talked about companies switching to alternative plastic materials. Naseem said that plastic is the only material that is suitable for curries - due to the fact that the food is served hot and with liquids. We also said that switching to alternative materials are costly, and businesses may not have the funds to switch. Naseem said that local councils should provide support to businesses, in the appropriate language.

We finished the session with Naseem telling us that there are positives in the fact that the families (kids) of business owners understand the issue around single-use plastic, and it is this understanding and passion that can help to drive businesses to change.

We'd like to thank Naseem for his time talking to us about the amazing work him and others in the charity do to tackle single-use plastic in the hospitality sector.

Our next bimonthly members webinar will be on Wednesday 9th December with Amy Meek of Kids Against Plastic, talking on how they engage and empower children to take action on plastic. Sign up to become a member and join us there!