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.
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Several good examples of what can be done can be found in local food shops and restaurants in Brighton and North Camp in Farnborough.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Iydea and The Deli are also BookCrossing zones enabling people to pass their books on for others to read.
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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.
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This morning Tesco announced half year profits up by 10%.
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reference and further reading
Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
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Lester R. Brown, Throwaway economy in trouble, Earth Policy Institute, 30 November 2006
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How to recycle everything!, The Ecologist, 30 August 2008
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Nick Kettles, Designing for Destruction, The Ecologist, July/August 2008
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Keith Parkins, Natural Capitalism, October 2000
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Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, April 2006
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Keith Parkins, Waste, recycling and packaging, Indymedia UK, 8 September 2008
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Keith Parkins, Beyond sustainability, to be published
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Tesco reports steady profits rise, BBC news online, 30 September 2008
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