Green | September 07, 2009 | 9 comments

Waitrose's Unbelievably Wasteful Packaging

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frizzlecat
Firstly, ignore the fact that this is veal, if you happen to have any strong feelings about such a thing. This article is about wasteful packaging.

You wonder why we have so much gargabe going into landfills? Why pollution starts to engulf us? Why you hear more and more about recyling and the need to reduce our waste?

This is it ^^^. We need to fix these problems at the SOURCE.

Waitrose, this is simply unacceptable. This is unacceptable for any shop or supermarket. The most annoying thing is that I could have sworn there were legislations put in place to prevent this from happening. Yet here it is.

You know there's a problem when the LABEL is near enough the same size as the item inside. Tut, tut, Waitrose. For shame.
  1. groups:
    Green,   Earth and Science,   Green Business
  2. tags:
    Pollution,  Waste,  Packaging,  Landfills,  2 more
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9 comments // Waitrose's Unbelievably Wasteful Packaging

  • AnnieMole
    • 0
      AnnieMole  
    • Image

    • Interesting find. On a similar note Starbucks are going to test recycling their cups in New York. I was amazed at how much of their stuff goes into landfill.

    • 2 years ago
  • frizzlecat
    • 0
      frizzlecat  
    • AnnieMole:

      Well, the "interesting find" was simply what plopped out of the weekly grocery shop onto my kitchen counter, but thanks anyway =P

      I didn't know America didn't offer ceramic mugs, or that their cups were non-biodegradable. That's quite shocking. That a disposable product, in this day in age, is not designed to be environmentally friendly i.e. in whole or in part biodegradable. I thought they were "paper" cups, right? I guess they aren't actually, then.

    • 2 years ago
  • couldntfindausername
    • 0
      couldntfindausername  

    • Not sure that can rightly be called wasteful packaging. Looking round the supermarket meat aisles, there are about a handful of different sizes of plastic trays, but scores and scores of different sizes of product. Having to produce appropriately sized packaging for each product would necessitate much higher levels of waste.

      Would it be better if the meat came in nice friendly paper boxes that turned into kittens and rainbows? Yes. Would people still buy the meat? No. It's not Waitrose's fault that people are silly.

    • 2 years ago
  • frizzlecat
    • 0
      frizzlecat  
    • couldntfindausername:

      Well, I can't really make any counter-arguments without actually calculating the volume of product versus wasted space. I guess the picture doesn't do it justice. It was the biggest waste of packaging I've ever seen. And, personally, I don't think people are being silly here. I think the vast majority of people would rather have smaller and less wasteful packaging. And I'm not talking about paper boxes or kittens, simply reducing the size of the current package would suffice.

    • 2 years ago
  • couldntfindausername
  • LozRiva
  • frizzlecat
    • 0
      frizzlecat  
    • couldntfindausername:

      "Just because the current packaging *looks* wasteful doesn't mean it"

      couldntfindausername, that's a good point. I guess there's an immensely complex system of variables that go into consideration in manufacturing, which could make the term "wasteful" quite ambiguous.

    • 2 years ago
  • bombastinator
    • 0
      bombastinator  

    • Well since that looks pretty similar to 95% of the meat I've seen in every supermarket I've been to in the last 10 years I'd say it's a problem that isn't very specific to waitrose. I'm sure they'd rather merely wrap it in a piece of paper but the problem is people won't buy it that way. They want to see what they are buying.

    • 2 years ago
  • frizzlecat
    • 0
      frizzlecat  
    • bombastinator:

      Interestingly, after I posted this, I discovered that Waitrose was actually the worst offender when it comes to supermarket packaging. There was a survey or poll or something. Waitrose came out on top. I've seen wasteful packaging before, in fact I'm sure there's always something I complain about when the shopping gets unpacked and I see what's there, but the item above really, really, is pushing the boat out. I thought this was supposed to not be happening anymore? Pizzas are another culprit. Make the box twice as big as the pizza inside. Sigh. People and money never mix.

    • 2 years ago
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