Home & GardenEnvironmental IssuesRecycling - blame the supermarkets, not the public Recycling - blame the supermarkets, not the public
01/11/2007
Whilst the poor old general public are being green-taxed to oblivion and penalised for rubbish collections, the real "green baddies" are the supermarkets, whose excessive and unnecessary packaging makes up around five percent of the total weight of shopping baskets. According to new research, Marks and Spencer's are the worst culprit for non-recyclable packaging (60%) and Asda come out tops - but the real green heroes are local retailers and market traders.
The Local Government Association (LGA), who commissioned the research, have now called on supermarkets to take urgent action on their excessive packaging or Britain will fail to meet its recycling targets.
Cllr Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's Environment Board, said: "People's stoic efforts to increase their recycling rates are being hamstrung by needlessly over-packaged products on sale in supermarkets. We all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste being thrown into landfill, which is damaging the environment and contributing to climate change.
"Councils and council tax payers are facing fines of up to £3 billion if we do not dramatically reduce the amount of waste thrown into landfill. We want to work constructively with supermarkets to look at solutions to the problem of excessive packaging. There are many examples from our research of how some retailers are making it easier for their customers to recycle, including the use of paper bags and removing layers of packaging. However, we have to question the necessity and desirability of shrink wrapping vegetables like peppers and broccoli."
The supermarket with the heaviest packaging was Lidl's (799.5g), while the contents of the Marks & Spencer basket had the lowest level of packaging that could be recycled (60%). Asda was the best performing supermarket, with packaging weighing 714g 70% of which was recyclable, and Tesco used the least packaging by weight at 684.5g per basket. But local producers, including shops and farmers' markets, who use paper bags and minimum packaging for nearly all their produce were by far the most green way of shopping.
Full report on the link below.