TotallyWasted.org - Reporting excessive packaging: Reducing packaging waste: the Courtauld agreement

TotallyWasted.org - Reporting excessive packaging

Excessive packaging in supermarkets is a burden to the consumer, to society and to the environment. Even recyclable packaging wastes energy and resources in manufacture, transport and processing. We want supermarkets to reduce their packaging to the minimum necessary. TotallyWasted.org aims to record the worst packaging excesses and 'name and shame' the offenders.

14 April 2007

Reducing packaging waste: the Courtauld agreement

The Courtauld committment was launched in 2005 after a meeting between the Environment Minister, the Chief Executive of WRAP and 13 grocers. Here are its aims:

To design out packaging waste growth by 2008
To deliver absolute reductions in packaging waste by 2010
To identify ways to tackle the problem of food waste

Tesco was one of the initial signatories, so we toured their aisles to see how well they're doing.

First stop was the vegetable aisle. Look at these courgettes! They are quite a robust vegetable - is the plastic tray and bag really necessary?

Next come the cooked meats. We were impressed at this gold tray, but it contains just one single cooked chicken breast!

Now to the baked goods. You can barely see these two pain au chocolats through the packaging:

Sorry Tesco, but we think you can do better at reducing your packaging. You have less than three years to "deliver absolute reductions in packaging waste". We at TotallyWasted.org would be happy to act as highly-paid consultants if you like.

TotallyWasted.org

Labels: Courtauld committment, Tesco

2 Comments:

At 15 April 2007 07:40 , The Whole Megillah said...: Great blog!

Do they really think people will be fooled into thinking it's a better product if it has a bigger packet? Er, and why are people fooled?!

My local organic shop does refills on all the essentials - shampoo, washing-up liquid, other (environmentally friendly) house products. Seems to make so much more sense to take back a perfectly good container and re-use it.

Sadly though, how many takers would there realistically be for that. Though I expect they'd be more up for refilling, say, a beer barrel ...
At 19 April 2007 10:46 , Anonymous said...: Actually the courgette is not a robust vegetable and is easily bruised or damaged in transit. You will often see a mouldy courgette sitting on the shelves of ASDA where they sell loose courgettes.

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About Me

Name: TotallyWasted

Location: GB

We are tired of carting home kilos of unnecessary packaging each month. We don't want moulded polystyrene trays, shiny coated cardboard and plastic bags. We believe in recycling, but we believe that it's better to use less material in the first place. We want good quality food without the packaging.