One way that I avoid plastic packaging is to feed myself and my family lots of whole, fresh fruit every day. Here is a slide show of what we had over the course of a week 
This is all relatively local and relatively in season. I hardly ever buy bananas. Besides the transport issue, all the banana boxes come wrapped thick plastic that I often see blowing around the streets.
I prefer to go to places where I can pick through the fruit myself. I had to learn this the hard way during strawberry season. I jumped at the chance to pay 1/2 the going price only to find that I had to throw about 1/2 of them away. When I living in Gozo, the strawberries were sold in plastic boxes. I was relieved when I found out that the fruit seller would take them back to reuse.
