Posts
It is about time that the supermarkets were challenged about the amount of excess packaging that they use every day.
We have all said so many times that the easiest way to reduce landfill is to reduce the amount of totally unnecessary packaging within which lots of the things that we buy arrive.
The government should force supermarkets to publish information about the packaging they produce, which adds millions of pounds to council tax bills, the LGA has said.
Every year, major retailers record how much packaging they generate with the government’s waste reduction body, WRAP.
The LGA has requested for this information to be made public, but when asked, neither WRAP nor most of the supermarkets would reveal how much they produce.
This week the LGA has written to environment minister Hilary Benn to call for the information to be published so that shoppers can see evidence of supermarkets’ claims that they are taking the problem of packaging seriously.
Supermarkets have pledged to cut waste produced by packaging, but research carried out for the LGA since October 2007 has shown that while the weight of food packaging in a typical basket of shopping has reduced, the proportion that can be widely recycled has not.
Of the eight supermarkets the LGA contacted, only Marks and Spencer and Waitrose revealed details about how much packaging they produce. Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Co-op all referred councils to WRAP, which failed to disclose how much packaging each supermarket produces. Lidl gave no reply at all.
Now make no mistake about it the Local Government Association (LGA) is not my favourite organisation by any means but when someone is right I will say so. The full article may be seen at: - Stores challenged over waste
Their calling for the publication of the figures will shame the supermarkets into taking action back along the packaging chain. After all it is the individual manufacturers who actually pack the goods.
