Shops Must Reduce Wasteful Packaging

6.52.21pm GMT Mon 12th Mar 2007

Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats have called on both the local MPs to back a Bill presented by Liberal Democrat Shadow Local Government Secretary Andrew Stunell MP to require all large shops to accept packing returned by customers.

Packaging typically costs a family £470 each year, one sixth of their food budgets, according to the Government's own Waste Resources Action Programme.

Local Liberal Democrat campaigner, Jill Hope, said: "It is worrying that over half the household waste produced by homes in Milton Keynes every year is from packaging. It costs families the equivalent of two months' grocery bills just to pay for throw-away wrapping and packaging.

Jill Hope shows wasteful supermarket packaging

The Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Milton Keynes North continued: "Local Liberal Democrats are backing this Bill that will make large stores like Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda accept packaging returned by customers. Supermarkets in Germany already have tables past the checkouts where shoppers can get rid of unwanted packaging like that shown in the attached photo, where apples are sold in a polystyrene tray, then shrink wrapped as well, when they could so easily be sold loose or in single plastic bags, not double-packaged. I will be writing to the local managers of the main supermarkets in Milton Keynes to see if they would copy this idea.

"The aim is to get retailers to put pressure on suppliers to cut packaging, resulting in less waste. If the supermarkets were responsible for the disposal of unwanted packaging, they would pay far more attention to the problem. This is good for the environment, good for council costs and good for waste disposal."

Commenting after presenting the Retail Packaging Recycling Bill to Parliament, Andrew Stunell MP said: "Commercial wrapping and packaging is very difficult to recycle, particularly at the household level, where quantities are quite small and very diverse. My Bill puts the responsibility back on the retailer. They will soon find out just how difficult much of it is to recycle because of different materials being bonded together."