The milk bottle shows how standardised glass can reduce plastic usage

sir – One way of reducing the huge amount of plastic waste currently generated (report, January 11) would be to increase the use of glass bottles.

At present, where they are used, as with beer, they are taken to a bottle bank and the glass re-made into new bottles. This is expensive in terms of cash and energy use.

The most effective recycling of a container is the milk bottle, re-used again and again. These are of a standard design that can be used by different dairies.

If other drink bottles, almost all of which come in similar volumes, were to be standardised, they could then be used in different drink-makers’ bottling machines. Edward Sargent

Sevenoaks, Kent

sir – As a former mariner for more than 30 years, I witnessed the growing amount of plastic waste polluting the oceans. However, the pictures of plastic detritus washed up on beaches after recent storms show a volume of items, including multitudinous plastic drinking straws, that could not possibly come from casual littering.

It invites the question of how much waste is being deliberately dumped at sea. William Wilson

London SW3

sir – Yesterday, I had a lovely cup of coffee in a National Trust cafe. It came in a takeaway compostable cup and lid. If the National Trust can do it why can’t the high-street coffee chains? Brenda Ross

Camberley, Surrey

sir – Has anyone thought of supplying drinking water to homes through underground pipes to help reduce plastic waste? David Rumsey

Pinner, Middlesex

sir – The Prime Minister says we should buy fruit and vegetables loose rather than pre-packaged.

The problem is that we usually have to put them in something and, in supermarkets at least, that invariably means the little plastic bags left out for the purpose.

Could the supermarkets replace those plastic bags with paper ones? William Cook

Blandford, Dorset

sir – Theresa May’s call for supermarkets to offer an aisle of loose produce is likely to cause an increase in food poisoning through human cross contamination.

When the customer in front of me touches and puts back the vegetables I might buy, I always wonder what their hands last touched. David Tyson

Plungar, Leicestershire

sir – After shopping in my supermarket’s plastic-free aisle, how should I pay – with my plastic debit card, or perhaps the plastic notes in my wallet? Jon Newman

Birmingham