“Supermarkets must take urgent action to reduce excessive packaging or Britain will fail to meet its recycling targets, council leaders warned today.The call came as new research published by the Local Government Association revealed up to 40 per cent of a regular household shopping basket cannot be recycled.
The LGA commissioned British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) Social Research to buy a range of common food items from eight retailers. Analysis of the purchases found that local retailers and market traders produced less packaging and that more of it could be recycled with the larger supermarkets lagging behind.
BMRB Social Research found five per cent of the total weight of shopping baskets was made up of packaging. The most environmentally friendly retailers have low levels of packaging a high proportion of which is recyclable. The supermarket with the heaviest packaging was Lidl's (799.5g), while the contents of the Marks & Spencer basket had the lowest level of packaging that could be recycled (60 per cent). Asda was the best performing supermarket, with packaging weighing 714g 70 per cent of which was recyclable. But the market was the best overall, with packaging weighing 710.5g, 79 per cent recyclable.
Recycling rates in Britain are increasing as more people do their bit to protect the environment. Councils are also extending and improving their recycling services in a bid to reduce the amount of waste thrown into landfill sites. The LGA has warned these efforts to meet EU recycling targets will not succeed unless supermarkets do more to reduce excessive packaging.”
This report is clearly very welcome. More and more consumers are doing their bit but if everything we purchase is unnecessarily and overly packaged the task is an up hill one, and of course who will get to pay for it in the end, the council tax payer.
http://www.lga.gov.uk/PressRelease.asp?id=SX1293-A7849461
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