one womans quest to takle over-packaging...join me!

happymummy24-7 · 6 August 2008 at 1:57PM

Hi everyone,
Today i have decided enough is enough!!
Our bin collections have recently been changed to 2 weekly and its getting on top of us!! 2 adults and 3 kids under 9 and the summer hols....now thats alot of rubbish!
I am a good recycler and pass this onto my kids BUT today when filling my shopping into my re-usable tesco bags i realised most of the room was being taken up with packaging,especially for frozen food! 2 little goodfellas solos pizza first shrink wrapped then put into a huge cardboard box....i need to buy 4 boxes to feed us one lunch.....
SO,i decided to remove all the excess packaging......and put it into the bin in the tesco's store :beer: It felt weirdly good,shops should be made to takle over packaging,its been talked about often,but we all know there is only one way to make them listen to the customer....we all make a real effort to 'show' them what its like having to find extra room in the household bin for rubbish and recycling:T

So how about it fellow MSE'rs.......will anyone join my campain to reduce the waste???
I also think the big supermarkets should be made to put recycling bin's in store for this very purpose!!
All it takes is a few moments,things like pizza boxes,cereal boxes,bags-that contain smaller bags ect ect,although my daughter was watching me closley to see what i would do with the fresh chicken,lol.
They want us to help the enviroment by re-using our carrier bags...this is the next step,next week i will be bringing my little tuppaware boxes to put the slices of ham for sandwiches in,lol.

C'mon...who's with me

post your experiences on here when you've tried it :T
xxx Laura.
p.s should i be nominated for post of the month i would use the winnings to buy myself a trollydolly bag (its full of reusable bags for the shopping!).....i soooooo want one of those! Thanks for reading!

Cinny91 · 6 August 2008 at 2:36PM

Good luck!!

My mum puts loose fruit ect straight into the trolley when we do the shop, then they go straight into the reuseable bags on the other side of the till saving us using those little white bags.

I'm sure that now stores are slowly stopping the carrier bags excess packaging wont be too far behind.

Good luck again!! I'll be passing any tips from this thread straight onto my Mum.

geri1965_2 · 6 August 2008 at 4:24PM

You shouldn't put cardboard in the bin, it's recyclable! Unless you mean the recycling bin? Doesn't your kerbside collection take it? Ours will take cardboard but not plastic, so I save the plastic bottles and take them down to Tesco once a week. It's a pain when you don't have a car though!

Have you thought about making your own pizzas by the way? Not only will it save on packaging, it will save you an awful lot of money as those Goodfellas ones are about £2 each!

tiff · 6 August 2008 at 4:39PM

Even though cardboard can be recycled, some things still do have too much packaging which includes plastic. There is still nowhere near me that recycles tetrapaks either, so I keep those to a minimum until they can be recycled. I try to buy as much loose fruit and veg that I can, I dont put them in bags - you dont get them out of the earth in bags!

It sounds awful but I'm not sure I could be bothered to take all the packaging off a weeks shopping. Good luck with the campaign though.

sparrer · 7 August 2008 at 1:49AM

While I agree in principle with overpackaging being annoying and wasteful, I'm afraid I don't know that leaving Goodfella's boxes in Tesco is going to have much effect. A protest letter/email to Goodfella would reach the company who produced the packaging in the first place.

As geri1965 said cardboard can be recycled, it's the thin heat-sealed cellophane inside that can't. Perhaps to stick that in an envelope and send it back to the manufacturer would have more of an impact that leaving the boxes in the store. Pies and gateaux (and lots of other foods I can't think of at this time of morning :rolleyes: )come in cardboard boxes with no cellophane inner wrapping so it can't really be necessary.

Cinny 91 I do exactly the same as your Mum, the only time I take a thin plastic bag is if a reduced-price Danish pastry is in one

rheme · 7 August 2008 at 5:52AM

Great initiative happymummy. Will certainly follow your lead.

4th person to add 'it' to the ignore list.

happymummy24-7 · 7 August 2008 at 10:34AM

Thanks everyone,even freddynomates......id forgotten how childish my kids used to be before they reached 6yrs old

I just wanted to get accross that i think the supermarkests should tackle over packaging and the only way this would become an issue for them is if we all started leaving it for them to recycle,instead of me having to cart it all home then throw it out anyway!
I can see how a monthly meeting in Mr.T's could start with ''any new issues anyone''? ''well yes actually,we are experiencing a huge increase in customers from various brances all over the uk removing their packaging before they leave the store'' mr.Boss ''what does this mean for us''?...........''It means we are going to be charged to dispose of this rubbish and will be caught by the recycling police so will have to start taking extra steps to reduce our extra waste...and it appears the customers are giving us their over packaged waste back,we need to get onto the manufacturers and insist over packaged items will no longer be acceptable !!!!!!''..............it makes me laugh but if enough people do it,it might just happen:rotfl:
just to clarify...im not a hippy(though come to think about it i do quite like our planet and did like using washable nappies with the 3 girls,and i do like hippies!),lol,im just a mum who is fed up having to do extra work when it could be done by someone else!

CountryWife_2 · 7 August 2008 at 6:10PM

Hi all,
I have just joined you re; the ignore thing. Isn't there something about not being rude to other people when you join the forum? i don't think i have come across anyone being quite so horrible on the site before.
As for the waste issue, I have not been using plastic bags for several years now, and that includes the small plastic bags for packaging where possible. I do also make my own stuff as much as i can so the waste that goes to landfill from our house is about the equivalent of one small bag per fortnight. I also grow my own veg and use our local butchers, greengrocers and deli shops as much as possible.
I am thinking of taking my own plastic tupperware type boxes for my shopping too but when i asked for less packaging at the deli counter in my supermarket they said they were not allowed to do it.

margaretclare · 7 August 2008 at 6:25PM

2 little goodfellas solos pizza first shrink wrapped then put into a huge cardboard box....i need to buy 4 boxes to feed us one lunch.....

I don't understand this, but then, I've never seen these, still less bought them. 4 boxes to feed one lunch, so they're individual, right? Why, if you're making lunch for 4 people?

One thing we've started doing recently is to buy meat from a farm shop, never from a supermarket. Even buying organic chicken in the supermarket, it sits in a little plastic tray which has to go into the recycling bin (our collection system has recently changed and now nearly everything can be recycled). Anyway, now we go to the farm shop, meat, chicken, sausages etc comes with a lot less wrapping and no little plastic trays to sit them in.

I also refuse a bag if a shopkeeper offers me one.

mooseandhobbes · 9 August 2008 at 9:30PM

Stupid people are stupid.

Anyway, more importantly, you might be interested in this article http://www.womens-institute.co.uk/viewNews.aspx?id=601.

I don't know if the WI is still doing this, but wouldn't it be great if it actually took off. :T

M x

happymummy24-7 · 10 August 2008 at 10:49AM

now thats what im talking about mooseandhobbes ! It mentions England and Wales.......im in Northern Ireland so i shall make a stand for us over here,lol.
Great find!

one womans quest to takle over-packaging...join me!

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