Early in the year, all the major supermarket chains vied with each other as to who was doing the best to get rid of plastic bags. Recently Asda restricted the number of plastic bags any one customer was allowed to use.

As of tomorrow (Wednesday 1 October 2008), Sainsbury's will remove all plastic bags from their checkouts. The bags will only be available if customers request them, causing delay at the checkouts and hassle for customers and checkout staff. This begs the question, will the checkout staff be running to the back of the store for plastic bags? The answer is no, they will be bending down all day to retrieve bags for customers.

What we are seeing is an exercise in greenwash, a concerted effort to distract from the excessive and unnecessary packaging used by supermarkets.

Today, I'm on my way to the local market. Fruit and vegetables are on display loose, I pick what I want and put in a paper bag. First Tuesday of the month I go to a farmers market in Guildford where I pick what I want and pop into a paper bag.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/gu-ford.htm

Several good examples of what can be done can be found in local food shops and restaurants in Brighton and North Camp in Farnborough.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/sussex/brighton.htm
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/nth-camp.htm

Iydea, an excellent vegetarian restaurant in the North Laine area of Brighton, food to take away is put in cardboard boxes, a 'plastic' lid made of biodegradable 'plastic', the paper napkins made of recycled paper. Everything can be recycled. Within the restaurant a box for the technical (ie man-made) nutrients which can be recycled, one for the organic waste which can be composted, and another for glass bottles.

 http://www.iydea.co.uk/

Infinity Foods, an excellent whole food cooperative in the North Laine area of Brighton, fruit and vegetables loose, pick your own and put in brown paper bags, freshly picked apples. If you need a plastic bag, it will cost you 10p for a biodegradable 'plastic' bag which can go on your compost heap.

 http://www.infinityfoods.co.uk/

In Taj, another excellent food shop in Brighton, the mouth watering fruit and vegetables are loose. Unfortunately they are using plastic bags, not paper bags or starch-based plastic.

The Deli, a local deli in North Camp, Farnborough, provides brown paper carrier bags to take away your purchase.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/nc-dir.htm#food

Iydea and The Deli are also BookCrossing zones enabling people to pass their books on for others to read.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/bookcrossing.htm
 http://www.bookcrossing.com/hunt/3/659/36476/481507/travel_-United-Kingdom-West-Sussex-Brighton-Iydea
 http://www.bookcrossing.com/hunt/3/573/72405/473182/travel_-United-Kingdom-Hampshire-North-Camp-The-Deli

If Sainsbury's were genuine about their desire to cut waste, they would get rid of all their excess and unnecessary packaging, and follow the example of Taj and Infinity Foods in Brighton, fruit and vegetables would be on display loose for customers to help themselves and place in a paper bag and at the checkout would be available at a nominal charge a 'plastic' biodegradable bag made of plant starch.

In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, instead of focusing on what counts, targeting supermarkets for their excess packaging, the council has proposed issuing everyone with half-size wheelie bins. An exercise in crass stupidity that has nothing to to do with either waste reduction or recycling, but which will cost the local taxpayers at least £750,000 for brand new wheelie bins when there is nothing wrong with the existing wheelie bins.

 http://cllrclifford.blogspot.com/2008/06/rushmoors-waste-management-panels.html
 http://cllrclifford.blogspot.com/2008/08/statement-to-sunday-telegraph.html

This morning Tesco announced half year profits up by 10%.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7643415.stm

video

 http://www.storyofstuff.com/

web

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/

reference and further reading

Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
 http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

Lester R. Brown, Throwaway economy in trouble, Earth Policy Institute, 30 November 2006
 http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch06_ss4.htm

How to recycle everything!, The Ecologist, 30 August 2008
 http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1049

Nick Kettles, Designing for Destruction, The Ecologist, July/August 2008
 http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1920

Keith Parkins, Natural Capitalism, October 2000
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/nat-cap.htm

Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, April 2006
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/curitiba.htm

Keith Parkins, Waste, recycling and packaging, Indymedia UK, 8 September 2008
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408329.html?c=on

Keith Parkins, Beyond sustainability, to be published
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/

Tesco reports steady profits rise, BBC news online, 30 September 2008
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7643415.stm