Easter was early this year, as everyone knows (it's the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Solstice, in case anyone's interested). The media wasted no time, same as every year, before running articles or interviewing local or national politicians about 'overpackaging'. As ever, they were concentrating on how the general public should demand that retailers and manufacturers use less packaging.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, announced in his 2008 budget that he is ready to launch a plastic bag tax on environmental grounds. This was picked up on by the national news media. However, interestingly, and very encouragingly, one major environmental organisation refused to comment on the grounds that there were far more important environmental issues to resolve than plastic bags.
Anyone who really understands the issues will appreciate that these headline-grabbing announcements are nothing more than gesture politics, with a good headline being the chief objective. Some of these ideas have been regarded as a 'good thing' for so long that we don't really stop and question them. Personally, I have a problem with 'degradable' materials (or 'compostable', or any other auto-breakdown mechanism). Once a material degrades, it is gone. Lost. Forever. What a shocking waste of a resource. Let's at least incinerate it so we can get the energy back. It's a bit like £10 notes - they are certainly biodegradable, but I'd rather recycle them, ideally into a nice bottle of wine.
The retailers are starting to turn up the heat. Asda looks as though it will soon introduce a modified version of its packaging scorecard system, and others will undoubtedly follow.
But, and it's a big but, there may be a substantial hidden benefit to all of this. Companies across the world are being forced to reconsider their packaging - materials, styles, components, logistics. I'm willing to bet that many of them, if they do things properly, will identify a whole raft of 'wins' - in efficiency on line, range rationalisation, material improvements, and they will be able to take advantage of new innovations. You only have to look at the Starpack awards to see what an inventive industry we are in. Better packaging should emerge from the exercise, so long as staff receive the training and possess the ability to see the potential. The danger is that we will end up falling into the trap of viewing the 'green' orthodoxies, such as 'biodegradability', as the only way forward, and miss the myriad opportunities for real improvement.
