It's all about small decisions. I'll list some examples but keep in mind that they're just examples.
* Prefer markets that overall use less plastic, even if this might bring you a small inconvenience. For example if market A sells groceries in bulk (bring your own bag) and market B sells the same groceries in styrofoam trays, then you buy it in market A, even if it's a bit further from your home.
* Actively refuse unnecessary plastic. For example, where I live bakeries often put bread inside paper bags, and the paper bags inside plastic bags; so I usually tell the workers there "no need for the plastic bag". I'm still creating some garbage (the paper bag) but it's way less than I would otherwise.
* Homemade alternatives for store-bought products. It doesn't even need to be the same product, as long as it fills the same role for you - like homemade fruit juice versus soda, homemade tomato sauce, or buying Parmesan in chunks and grating it instead of buing it pre-grated in small packages. You'll need to take your tastes into account, but some replacements might be even cheaper or better than what you're replacing.
* Reusing containers so you need to buy less tupperwares. Like ice cream pots, soda bottles, even margarine pots. Where I live there are even jokes about how ice cream pots never contain ice cream, but cooked beans.
"Unnecessary" plastic that you can avoid with small decisions only accounts for a small proportion of plastic waste. Product packaging often can't be avoided for most people and I don't find it particularly useful to shame consumers for what is largely out of their control.
> Prefer markets that overall use less plastic, even if this might bring you a small inconvenience.
Great. If you can. I live in Canada and over 90% of our grocery sales come from the largest 8 food retailer corporations. The majority of the stock has excessive plastic packaging. Even the vegetables are often shrink-wrapped or in sealed plastic bags.
> Actively refuse unnecessary plastic.
There's very little plastic that you have a choice about. Most people bring their own reusable bags because single-use plastic bags are banned in Canada. It's not enough.
> Homemade alternatives for store-bought products.
It's typically more expensive and more time consuming to do so. If you are not in an income bracket that you have to worry about meeting your bill payments, sure this is great. I jar a lot of my own stuff and I avoid soda anyway. Not everyone has the freedom (time + money + space) to pursue this.
> Reusing containers so you need to buy less tupperwares.
Sure. You can do that. For me I probably re-use 1 in 5 of any single-use containers that I buy and I haven't bought tupperware in years. It's kind of like trying to slow down a runaway train by blowing at it, though.
* Prefer markets that overall use less plastic, even if this might bring you a small inconvenience. For example if market A sells groceries in bulk (bring your own bag) and market B sells the same groceries in styrofoam trays, then you buy it in market A, even if it's a bit further from your home.
* Actively refuse unnecessary plastic. For example, where I live bakeries often put bread inside paper bags, and the paper bags inside plastic bags; so I usually tell the workers there "no need for the plastic bag". I'm still creating some garbage (the paper bag) but it's way less than I would otherwise.
* Homemade alternatives for store-bought products. It doesn't even need to be the same product, as long as it fills the same role for you - like homemade fruit juice versus soda, homemade tomato sauce, or buying Parmesan in chunks and grating it instead of buing it pre-grated in small packages. You'll need to take your tastes into account, but some replacements might be even cheaper or better than what you're replacing.
* Reusing containers so you need to buy less tupperwares. Like ice cream pots, soda bottles, even margarine pots. Where I live there are even jokes about how ice cream pots never contain ice cream, but cooked beans.