Public concern about over-packaging so often misses the point that we should be looking at how to reduce the environmental impact of producing, distributing, storing, selling and consuming food, rather than the amount of packaging waste we have to throw away.
Consider the fact that overall the carbon emissions from wasted packaging is one tenth of that for food waste. So it’s much more important to prevent food being thrown away than to reduce packaging.
Here’s the consumer fact sheet I wrote for M&S on packaging in 2008. <Link to come>
I also wrote a more technical briefing sheet aimed at business, government and NGOs, that I also wrote for M&S in 2008 on packaging issues. This explains M&S strategy, approach and policy recommendations in more detail. It hasn’t been published by the company, so the only place to find it is on my website.
