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A dubious shade of green

One of the main themes of my book Ecologic is the way that companies use green credentials as a sort of 'aren't we good' badge, even when what they're boasting about isn't exactly what it seems.

I think a good example of this is the pizza boxes from Sainsbury's alongside.

100% recyclable packaging, it says. Good stuff. However, that's very much in principle. Of the three bits of packaging I can only recycle the outside cardboard boxes. Our local recycling doesn't take plastic wrappers, and although in principle the cardboard that is under the pizza could be recycled, in practice it can't because it's highly contaminated with tomato, grease and general food materials.

Paper recyclers wouldn't touch it with the traditional barge pole.

I like packaging that's minimal and recyclable - but we shouldn't pretend it's something it's not.
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  1. MagicMan3 May 2009 at 08:56

    So true. The 15 liter 100% recyclable water bottles are another example. The bottles are too big for the recycling plant to process. Therefore the recycling trucks leave them behind.

    Smiles
    Bob

    ReplyDelete

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