This is the first opportunity I have had to update my blog for a few weeks having just returned from holiday. During the last few days there has been a great deal of media coverage on the issue of rubbish and how the government is aiming to encourage more people to recycle through the thorny issue of introducing charging for the quantity of rubbish households produce or reducing household rubbish collection from once a week to once a fortnight.

I am all in favour of pushing up our recycling rates where many landfill sites are almost at capacity and are due to close in the coming decades – After all we are a relatively small and crowded country and we have limited space to bury too much more of our waste.
Although I generally agree that there should be incentives for those households that recycle ( reduction in council tax for instance) and the introduction of charges for those that don’t or who produce large quantities of rubbish, I often think that that we should be doing more as a country to tackle the problem at source. What is required is a major reduction in the amount of packaging our goods come with in the first instance –or at least where necessary, packaging which is biodegradable or compostable. Its good to see a few products now appearing in degradable corn based plastics for instance but more needs to be done, particularly by the larger supermarkets. Why do supermarkets only provide plastic bags in which to place loose fruit in Veg? – surely the traditional paper bag which can degrade is far better – After all many independent grocers still use them! Ireland introduced a plastic bag tax a few years ago which cut plastic bag use by 95%. In France supermarkets don’t issues plastic bags in which to place your shopping – everyone has to bring their own bags.
These simple solutions can help to start to address some of the problems caused by this countries waste mountain. Whilst I support recycling efforts I do think that governments, businesses and supermarkets should be doing more to cut out excess packaging therefore reducing the need for such vast quantities having to be recycled at the end of their lifespan.