Packaging: here I go again

[simsqu]

but basically, I did a pretty good 2-3 day shop with ZERO packaging, other than a few paper bags.

Could you now tell us how much food is wasted as unsaleable at the packaging free shops where customers get to put their sticky fingers in it before choosing not to buy, compared to the packaged food at the supermarket.

Good evening AF62. I do hope you are keeping well. Thank you for your comment.

You make a very good point. There are plenty of inconveniences to do with going packaging free. To answer your specific point, The packaging free shops that I have been to all have the loose items in a separate, closed container. When you want some, say, dried kidney beans, you lift the hinged lid, where there is a scoop inside, so you then scoop yourself as many beans as you like, put the scoop back, and close the lid.

Is it as tamper-proof as a sealed plastic container? Of course it isn't, but that is surely no reason to just give up and not try to improve the situation. It is clearly one of the problems that will need to be overcome if this is to become mainstream.

But it was always thus with new technology, social thinking, paradigm shifts call it want you want. If I may say so, you sound a little like Louis in the following scenario from the turn of the nineteeth century:


Sir Louis Montefiore Voletrouser and his wife Lady Edith Voletrouser are taking tea in the drawing room

Louis (for it is he) Nearly got run over by a hideous contraption called a motor vehicle. Been readin’ up on them. Filthy, noisy, smelly things. Slow, uncomfortable, and what’s more they need somethin’ called PETROL poured into them, whatever the hell that is, or they won’t even go, and that is if you can get them started. Where am I goin’ to get petrol?

Edith Apparently you can buy petrol in more and more places nowadays.

Louis Not compared to hay! Compared to the convenience of a horse, it’s a non-starter. I say, non-starter, what? What? Egad woman, I just made a joke!

Edith Very funny dear

Louis I mean, dash it all, Edith. A horse starts instantly: you just get on it, dig the spurs in and off we go. Far faster and more convenient than a motorcar. No petrol necessary! And you can get more horses by breedin’ them! No, mark my words woman. It’s a dangerous, useless contraption and will never catch on. SEATON!!!

Seaton Yes Sir?

Louis Damn cold in here what? What? Throw another peasant on the fire would you? Or maybe you can get some of that petrol to chuck on the fire. Now THERE'S a good idea

Seaton Very good, Sir

[pje16]

I think the big supermarkets are missing a trick here. The first to make a significant effort to reduce plastic packaging will be rewarded with better sales and a boosted profile. As it is I'm sick of filling my recycling bin every time I want a fruit salad.

Waitrose have just put the cost of a bag up to 50p, that will make people think once or twice before grabbing 4 or 5 bags

[swill453]

* This week my other half has bought some hot chocolate. They are individual, sealed sachets and they are then put in a box.
* The same with some coffee, individual sachets then put in a box.

Buy in jars then.

* The same with some Alpen cereal bars. Sealed wrapper and then boxed.
* Virtually all multipack chocolate bars. Sealed wrapper and then sealed again.......et c etc.

These (in my experience) tend to be decanted from the outer box then carried elsewhere (picnic, packed lunch etc.) where they need individual protection.

Scott.

[AF62]

No. Chocolate multipack biscuits are in individual sealed wrappers......thats what keeps them fresh. They are then wrapped again in another wrapper in quantities of 4 or 6 or more. If you want to reduce packaging, sell them separately.

We are where we are because of convenience for the manufactuer, the retailer, the warehouse and the consumer. If you want to save the planet attitudes have to change.

So you want multi-pack items banned and prices to rise.

[AF62]

Waitrose have just put the cost of a bag up to 50p, that will make people think once or twice before grabbing 4 or 5 bags

I doubt people who pay Waitrose prices are that bothered about 50p here or there.

[richlist]

Got the best bulk buy of the month today........managed to fill the Chelsea tractor.

[AF62]

Got the best bulk buy of the month today........managed to fill the Chelsea tractor.

Using dinosaur fuel? Now that is being in the dark ages.

[UncleEbenezer]

Cucumbers - never known them to come with a loose outer covering only the shrink wrap which minimises waste.

Indeedie. I wonder where Dod does his shopping that double-packs them?

Both buying and cooking in whatever level of bulk you can cope with can sometimes improve efficiency, saving both money and environmental footprint. Of course it can also do the opposite - for example if it leads to waste. Methinks commonsense is needed here.

[richlist]

Got the best bulk buy of the month today........managed to fill the Chelsea tractor.

Using dinosaur fuel? Now that is being in the dark ages.

It's a hybrid so it's better than most !

[didds]

I think the big supermarkets are missing a trick here. The first to make a significant effort to reduce plastic packaging will be rewarded with better sales and a boosted profile. As it is I'm sick of filling my recycling bin every time I want a fruit salad.

Id certainly hope so and I/we would support such a shop.

Assuming of course they have a branch in the places where people will want to support them.

As an example in our modestly sized town there is no Asda, Waitrose, Tesco, Co-Op... and the Sainsbury's is too small to be any better than a glorified corner shop.

We do have a Morrisons, Iceland and M&S Food (even smaller than the useless Sainsbury's)

[AF62]

I think the big supermarkets are missing a trick here. The first to make a significant effort to reduce plastic packaging will be rewarded with better sales and a boosted profile. As it is I'm sick of filling my recycling bin every time I want a fruit salad.

Id certainly hope so and I/we would support such a shop.

You might, most won’t.

Where people shop is based on price and convenience - everything else is a secondary consideration.

If the local easy to get to supermarket has a good range and cheap prices, then even if they were the most evil corporation in the world then most people will still shop there.

[didds]

If the local easy to get to supermarket has a good range and cheap prices, then even if they were the most evil corporation in the world then most people will still shop there.

Thats very fair!

and I do agree - I was really thinking about our town where all the S/Ms are about as much effort. Lidl (which i omitted in my list) is a further trip - but Id certainly consiere using it more if such a oackagings cenario was typical there ... but I do accept its not much furher for my one a week visit (if that).

didds

[AF62]

If the local easy to get to supermarket has a good range and cheap prices, then even if they were the most evil corporation in the world then most people will still shop there.

Thats very fair!

and I do agree - I was really thinking about our town where all the S/Ms are about as much effort. Lidl (which i omitted in my list) is a further trip - but Id certainly consiere using it more if such a oackagings cenario was typical there ... but I do accept its not much furher for my one a week visit (if that).

didds

Exactly. In my town there is a large Tesco (and two small ones), Waitrose, M&S, CoOp, two Lidl, and an Aldi.

It is irrelevant what Morrisons, Asda, and Sainsbury offer because I am not going to drive 15 miles each way to find out.

There is a ‘no packaging’ shop in town, but as it’s prices are 500% higher than the supermarkets and the products exceedingly ’worthy’, it seems like many ‘hobby shops’ to rely on the owners doing it for love not money.

[brightncheerful]

"I have a double garage which remains empty because the entrance doors are too narrow for my car"

Chicken and egg. having a garage that won't fit the car means getting a car that fits the garage.

We used to garage (double) our cars but since puppy and different cars we have joined the ranks of the 'real world 'and park on the driveway. (In towns and cities I guess their 'real world' is parking in the street or on the pavement.) hence we now have two garages in which to store stuff that used to be in the house. We have more space for the stored items so for example instead of piling tins of dog food in a cupboard they can be displayed on shelves. I can arrange the cases of bottled water neatly in my use-next order instead of putting them randomly throughout the house where we cold trip over them. The plastic bottles of washing-up liquid etc that used to reside in the garden shed and would freeze in winter can now be in the garage. All in al, having another 2 'rooms' to add to the approximately 14 rooms we had before makes all the difference. Even the pipes of old files that i am processing do not seem to occupy as much space on the garage floor as they did in my office.

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Until reading this thread it never crossed my mind to put the top back on the plastic bottles that I've crushed. That would mean having to ferret around the recycled rubbish trying to find where the top had landed after I'd chucked it in first. Long ago, a friend announced she was collecting plastic bottle tops for someone whose charity the someone was a volunteer for could use the tops to make wheelchairs or some such. Friends of the friend would accumulate dozens sometimes hundred of bottle tops and every so often hand them over. If anyone here knows of a good cause that is in need of plastic bottle tops then please post a link and if convenient for me then i should be happy to help.

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We buy most of our greengrocery from Riverford. Cucumbers come in brown paper bags that can be re-used. recycled. Other greens in recyclable plastic, or loose such as bunches of carrots. Every week we return the box the items come in, the box is collected with each weekly delivery, and R says they can re-use the box up to 10 times.

Unless i have missed it, i see no one has commented on printing or writing on both sides of a sheet of paper for (business) correspondence.

[UncleEbenezer]

Unless i have missed it, i see no one has commented on printing or writing on both sides of a sheet of paper for (business) correspondence.

As a schoolboy I had a better trick than that with my exercise books.

To get the most out of them without waste, I'd write in pencil. Then I could re-use the same sheet of paper by writing over it in ink.

I also cultivated tiny handwriting to reduce waste. My exercise books never needed replacing!

[brightncheerful]

Unless i have missed it, i see no one has commented on printing or writing on both sides of a sheet of paper for (business) correspondence.

As a schoolboy I had a better trick than that with my exercise books.

To get the most out of them without waste, I'd write in pencil. Then I could re-use the same sheet of paper by writing over it in ink.

I also cultivated tiny handwriting to reduce waste. My exercise books never needed replacing!

I used to have tiny handwriting. So much so that my cousin returned a cheque that i had signed and sent her because she said i hadn't signed it. Years of keyboarding have rendered my handwriting almost illegible, even to me. After a while I find writing a strain. To my amazement I managed to write on every page of a notebook that a friend gave me but now looking at the scrawl and trying to work out what i wrote is trying. My credit card signature continues to be tiny and because i find handwriting a strain invariably I make a mistake even with my signature - which I'm told looks good to have crossings out on a signature, especially on official documents.

Ask for write in pencil then re-use by writing over in ink, artists used to repaint over the original artwork.