h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Waste charges are an idea,
our council collects recyclables fortnightly and as I have 3 kids we use a lot of packaging.
PACKAGING, Should I be charged for removing waste packaging that I do not
use?
Can I go to the supermarket and remove the unwanted packaging before I pay?

Do the supermarkets give me a rebate on my shopping for taking away the waste that they produce?

My family do not eat packaging, we eat food!
When I go to the supermarket I pay for food; but I also have to pay for the packaging that I do not want.

Can I put my packaging in a box labelled tesco and the council will charge them for the removal?

Can I take all my unwanted packaging back to the store for them to deal with as they created it in the first place???
Answers on a postcard please

Nannuu Nannuu

My sentiments exactly.

If they (the Government, Councils, whatever) want me to throw away less (I recycle everything I feasbly can) then maybe they should put pressure on companies to produce less unnecessary packaging to contain their products or make the packaging more environmentally friendly.

Packaging is certainly a nuisance, but it all goes in the recycling bin anyway, so it doesn't cost me anything.

gnomon. a large portion, perhaps even a majority, of packaging materials from household consumer goods are either not allowed into recycling, or if they are, represent a significant energy/labour cost such that any benefit of recycling them is outweighed by the ecological cost.

this includes polystyrene foam, low density plastics, newsprint and cellophane.

there is a substantial amount of fuzzy accounting going on with the economics of recycling. old newspapers for example are often stored in cavernous warehouses because it is simply not economical against the cheap cost of new material. sadly, by putting newspapers and other unsuitable/uneconomic materials into recycling systems a consumer is often inflicting a deficit rather than a benefit. it is unlikely this will be otherwise until appropriate alteration is made to the price of 'original' material such that an accommodation is made for the subsequent retrieval and recycling cost of the stuff.

heartbreaking to see huge trucks trundling down the road to collect mere kilograms of 'recyclables' that won't be recycled anyway.

Thanks for that, antigravitas. We're kept in the dark as to which things are easily recyclable and which aren't. As it is, we re-use as much as we can and don't use plastic carrier bags to bring our shopping home - nobody does anymore, since they introduced the bag tax.

But we still have the problem of the Penguin bar, which is wrapped in plastic. Each ten of these are then wrapped again in plastic, and three of these packs are put together and again wrapped in plastic, giving use three layers of plastic between the chocolate and the shelf.

In German supermarkets, you can remove all the excess packaging right there and sort it into the appropriate bins, just taking home the final wrapper/container...

I have noticed that increasing amounts of the plastic containers that come from the supermarkets (the own-brand stuff usually) is made of the recyclable plastic instead of the other types that can't be recycled. This is a step in the right direction but I'd prefer if they would reduce the amount of it. I'd heard that about german supermarkets Mal

Shredded paper and cardboard is good for the compost heap at this time of year when most of what is going in there is grass clippings so you can deal with a lot of the papery stuff yourself.

In switzerland you can only throw away rubbish in special bin bags, and these are very expensive so people really make an effort to reduce and recycle so they don'thave to buy extra bags.

We haven't used plastic bags from the supermarket for *ages* and we don't have a bag tax here - I wouldn't mind if they did introduct one though as that might stop other high-street shops compulsively putting things in bags before handing them over - only for me to then put the whole lot it my reusable bag. I usually manage to stop them doing it these days but they don't like it.

My particular gripe is with Morrisons, who helpfully print on their plastics
"This packaging is not recyclable, but because we care about the environment we're doing something about it"
Thing is, if they cared THAT much, they'd have replaced the packaging already instead of printing lame-assed excuses.

Environmental Hypocricy is what I call it.....