Which? Magazine switches to a potato-starch wrapper

Well done, Which, not a moment too soon. 🙂

We could opt in receiving a pdf/other than paper version of the magazine.

Hi George – We have often discussed the problem of councils using different coloured bins and accepting different materials in their recycling bins. Even if we know what goes in our recycling bins at home, it’s easy to get wrong when we are away.

I wonder if Which? has considered pushing for uniformity in how waste is handled by different councils. It’s something that could attract considerable public support.

@gmartin, Hello George. Thanks. I think we need to do much more than just label packaging. We need to push for less packaging, all packaging to be easily and economically recyclable and replace many plastics with alternative materials such as paper, aluminium and glass. We might use more energy to reuse the materials but that is renewable; plastics in landfill and the sea – even in the Mariana trench 11km deep – is irrecoverable pollution.

With regard to council bin colours it does make sense to introduce uniformity. However that does not address the key issue, that of reducing waste. Surely that is where attention – and public support – should be directed.

@abbysempleskipper, Abby, it seems to me that much of what Which? gets involved in has specialist organisations dealing with specific problems, like waste, product durability, energy conservation, standards…… I would not want Which? to opt out of such topics, quite the contrary. I hope they will work actively in cooperation with them and feed in constructive input from Which?’s own staff and from its Members and Convo contributors. Just as important is to then keep us informed as to what is resulting, progress made, projects being developed.

Thanks for the links, Abby. What may trigger more action in the UK is the decision of China to stop importing waste.

Even if we leave it to Wrap to tackle the problems it might be worth Which? looking at the challenges we face in dealing with waste food packaging. The recycling number (resin identification code) is often not clearly shown and in the case of black trays is not a reliable indication of what to do with them.

@abbysempleskipper, thanks Abby. Look forward to seeing it.

Thanks Abby. Bananas have easy to remove protective skins, yet our supermarkets often feel the need to put them in plastic bags. 🍌🍌🍌

“The plastic plant pot is the gardener’s equivalent to the shopper’s plastic carrier bag: we know we use too many of them – some 500 million each year in the UK – but they’re really cheap and they’re handy. “. From BBC Gardening. I must have a couple of thousand that I’ve accumulated over many years; I don’t throw them out but reuse them. They still get added to when I buy new plants from the garden centres. However, one independent nursery was on tv news recently. They grow in plastic pots but, when they sell the plants, transfer them into paper versions. It could be a bigger step than mag wrappers if others followed their example.