At our last Zero Chippenham meet-up new member and Chippenham resident Colin Smith expressed his frustration at the complexity of supermarket packaging, and the inability to recycle much of it. We asked Colin if he’d like to write a post for our Zero Waste project. Here it is…
I am sure that i am not the only person that unpacks bought materials and looks for the correct recycling options for the packaging – only to find that some cannot be recycled, despite similar packaging being labelled that it can. An example of this packaging are some food products, such as sliced cheeses, bacon and salami labelled clearly labelled ‘Do Not Recycle’ – other materials of course include polystyrene – all of which goes into household refuse and presumably ends up in landfill. We are all being asked to ‘go green’, part of which includes the need to recycle as much as we can, and to most of us this is now second nature.
We must be mindful that we cannot keep digging holes in the ground and burying our unwanted waste, which can take 100s/1000s of years to break down. I suspect that
most of us feel that we are the receiver of the ‘free waste packaging’ by product which we do not want but become responsible for its disposal. The provider washes their hands of this offering with no option to either leave at the store or return. Some packaging serves no real purpose – I have just brought a new shirt consisting of a plastic bag, paper to divide the shirt, plastic clips and cardboard to keep the shape of the shirt and collar, other examples include food products such as broccoli wrapped in cling film, bananas tapped together and large packaging boxes for minor items, i.e. a pair of running socks sent through the post in a box big enough for a pair of shoes.
I know that packaging is necessary, however alternatives are available which some organisations now use, the National Trust now send out their magazines in plastic bags made from starch which can go into compost bin, Boston Tea Party do not use once only coffee cups – you can buy reuseable cups or take along your own. Other countries make more effort to ensure that plastic and glass bottles are recycled by giving money back on their return. These few examples show that options do exist.
We do not have a magic wand to rectify the issue overnight. At the same time our producers and retail outlets appear slow to change. It is possible to move forward on
this issue, for instance the removal of plastic straws, but at the same time it feels that if Government does not stipulate a change, very little happens. Let’s hope that business eventually wakes up to the need to ‘Go Green’ and insist the supply chains
not only just use environmentally friendly packaging but also reduce the packaging.
Do you feel the same as Colin about packaging? Would you like to join him in our Zero Waste project?