Further packaging

After reading Mark Price, managing director of the Waitrose supermarket chain, my vow to refuse plastic bags from as many shops as they are offered now seems Lilliputian step in the march to the green planet. But I will not be deterred. Eating Zimbabwean tilapia and buying Spanish roses will not yet make me feel I am making a difference. (Guardian article 10/3/2008). He states it is better to buy Spanish grown roses rather than English grown after you balance the footprint of the air miles from Spain with that of the heat and light needed in this country.

There are many, many factors when shopping that can impact upon the world and its dwindling resources and greenness. Packaging, air miles, refrigeration, supermarkets dominance and its effect on small business and their ability to sustain or destroy farmers and growers both at local and global level are players in the game of green shopping.

Consumers who wish to make a difference are faced with some difficult choices and the necessary information is not always available or very clear. If buying Kenyan food, for example, I recognise some jet aircraft has flown several thousand miles and the carbon footprint can be measured. But in buying the food I am sustaining families in employment and bringing money into an environment that may help to build schools and create health promotion schemes. How can I make a green decision amid this balance of loss and gain?

Unless someone comes with a definitive ethical purchasing index to apply to buying which converts factors for carbon footprint, farming sustainability, environmental and social impact, I will continue to run around in a green fug.

However the plastic bag challenge will remain. I feel it is a clear contribution to the world. The other day I collected some spectacle from a branch of Specsavers. I was asked if I was to wear them immediately. I said no and as I hadn’t a case with me they placed within a new one. Now for the killer question. I was asked if I wanted them in a bag. I almost screamed why. The logical extension is that I will need a bag whenever and wherever I carry them. I declined politely. Another anecdotal observation amused me in Asda. At the check out, a mother and daughter were bagging their shopping of which the last item was a large packet of bread buns.

Not only where they in a plastic bag, but they had a handle already as part of their packaging and yes, they were placed inside a plastic carrier bag without thought. My inward smile of disbelief was immeasurable.