same again recycled
so the supermarkets are still using too much packaging according to the local government association, and it suggests the stores should contribute to the cost of recycling, as an incentive to produce less waste.
swipe me, that’s come out of the blue. what are we gonna do now boss?
of course that’s common sense, and to suggest that retailers should, within reason, minimize the amount of packaging they use on their products is surely what granny used to call “a statement of the bleedin’ obvious”! what a poppet she was, i can hear her saying it now!
but the keyword here is reason and what’s reasonable to a dyed-in-the-wool (at home, obviously. using only natural pigments) spin-your-own-yoghurt, grow-your-own-denim green facist is surely bang-out-of-order to the bling-obssessed idiots for whom life is not worth living without conspicuous (over) consumption. as always in such debates, common sense will lie somewhere between the poles. (no, not the Poles, we’ll whinge about them another day 
muddying the waters, meanwhile, are the manufacturers and retailers who whilst only-too-ready to parade their distorted green achievements when they feel they have no choice, are acutely aware that the great unwashed are suckers for fancy packaging, and of the crucial importance of making their own offering stand out in a crowd of competing products.
all of that said, assuming we find the happy medium, what are we going to do with the packaging that’s unavoidable? and with the rest of our rubbish? have every man, woman and child in the land endlessly separating it into ‘x’ different, ill-defined categories and placing the results into ‘x’ different coloured receptacles. what a farce!
what do you suppose is the ‘carbon footprint’ of manufacturing these tens of millions of plastic bins from fossil fuels, and distributing them, before we ever have the pleasure of sorting our rubbish into them? the mind boggles. and just out of interest, who ever ‘counts’ the environmental/visual pollution of all these bins on our streets every week. it’s offensive and depressing.
and what actually happens to this ill-assorted crap after collection is another even more outrageous abuse. vast quantities are simply chucked into landfill! how the hell dare they? and why?
well let’s leave aside incompetence and take a look at one nominally recyclable commodity, cardboard. i say nominally. taking into account the costs of collection, handling and storage the economics of this are at best questionable. at worst, when demand falls off, and the price falls off a cliff the argument is all-over. cost-effectiveness in any enterprise on this scale demands continuity (or a rat-proof, rent-free warehouse the size of the millenium dome until prices pick up).
as enlightened souls like myself have been saying for the duration of the green debate: wake up idiots!
a joined-up policy on waste is long overdue to say the least and the solution is simple and has been demonstrated in some more forward-thinking parts of europe for donkies years.
1. minimise wasteful packaging.
2. collect rubbish once a week.
3. mechanically separate what is usefully/cost effectively recyclable.
4. burn the remainder sending the heat/power output to homes/industry.
it’s not brain science.