My particular sin is that although there are places to buy porridge oats in paper bags rather than plastic ones, the shops within walking distance have only plastic-bag-wrapped brands.

There will always be some things – medical items in particular – where the impermeability of plastic is essential (at least until something new is invented). I am not sure I would want a biodegradable denture myself. The reason to try to reduce our use of inessential plastic items is to leave us the resources to make the essential ones.

I think what you have done with hand-me-down toys is pretty impressive – I don’t think many of my childhood toys physically survived that long! Oddly enough I may be in a position to do this in future when my nephew is older because of toys I’ve been given as an adult …