Excessive packaging: What can I do?

It's all well and good to whinge. After all, we are the middle class! But what can we do about excessive packaging? Here are a few simple suggestions:

1. Take your business elsewhere
   Hit the supermarkets' bottom lines, and take your business elsewhere. Visit farmers' markets and greengrocers if you can, or consider a vegetable home delivery service.



2. Leave the packaging at the supermarket counter
   In November 2006, the Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw suggested that after paying for their goods, shoppers should remove "excessive and unnecessary" wrappers and leave them behind.


3. Write to your local Trading Standards office
   The 2003 Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations require that "packaging shall be so manufactured that the packaging volume and weight be limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and for the consumer". Find your local Trading Standards office using the Trading Standards central website, and write to them quoting the above regulations, and enclosing either a photograph of the excessive packaging or the packaging itself. Remember to give the name and address of the store where you saw or bought the product.
   


4. Write to the supermarkets
   Quote the 2003 Packaging Regulations, quote the company's own corporate social responsibility commitments, and send a photograph of or enclose the packaging in question.


5. Petition the Prime Minister
   This is for UK residents only, I'm afraid! There are a couple of relevant E-petitions on the Number 10 website. One calls for supermarkets to be compelled to accept packaging from their stores for disposal (sign here), whilst the other calls a code of conduct for manufacturers and importers to reduce the amount of plastic they use (sign here). If a petition gathers more than 1000 signatories, the PM's office has to write a response to it.

Please remember to be polite and reasonable in all your actions. Supermarket employees deserve to be treated with as much respect as anyone else. Don't be rude or unpleasant: there's no need, and it will only compromise your argument!

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