PACKAGING AND RECYCLING

I don’t know how you all feel about packaging and how our goods are recycled, but I for one think that our producers do not necessarily take a responsible attitude to what they package their produce in or to what happens to it when it leaves their premises. Some items are ridiculous in the amount of packaging that they come in and where does it go straight in the dustbin. People don’t want to pay for something that is going to end up straight in the dustbin. Now forgive me if I am wrong but that ends up straight in landfill and I thought that was what the powers that be wanted to stop us doing.

What happened to the good old paper bag. I remember my grandmother had a drawer where pieces of string, pretty bags, plain paper bags even good polythene bags that could be used again went and was stored until there was a need for a bag or some string. That drawer never disappointed and what’s more it’s a habit I have followed on. It comes under the heading waste not want not.

I think people would appreciate manufacturers taking more responsibility for the packaging by the reintroduction of the scheme where you used to return your bottles to the shop and get so much for each bottle returned. If manufacturers/producers they were really responsible about the imprint that they are leaving behind then they would recycle these bottles and use those that they can again which would feasibly save even more damage to this planet of ours and maybe secure its future for our children and our children’s children. Perhaps our supermarkets shopping venues could be encouraged to do more than they are doing at present. What do you think and how do you think we could achieve this. We all have a responsibility to try and clean up our acts a bit and to find greener methods of doing things.

What does annoy me to high heaven is that meetings are had to ostensibly get the manufacturers to clean up their acts and then they have five year deadlines in which to change things over. Why so long what’s wrong with more achievable targets like within a year rather than five years.

I am a bit of a bottle junkie and I like to try and find pretty jars and bottles which I can sterilize and re-use for my home made preserves and liqueurs. When I first started out I wrote to a couple of companies asking why jo public could not buy jar closures from for particular jars but I was greeted with some comment about many companies were precious about their trade marks and names and that this sort of thing was not within their remit. I am not going to be competing with them for goodness sake– I just want to recycle a few jars. So I say why not encourage recyling rather than dumping. If we could get particular closures for different jars and then if they did a recycling scheme the rest could be sent back to them. For the amount of money they invest into new ideas for packaging etc. why not put some into dealing with what they have already produced. It would cost them far less in the long run. The simplest ideas are the best.

Better get off the soap-box – for today at least.

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