21/06/06 - Neil Parrish MEP, Avoid Over-Packaged Supermarket Products

Avoid over-packaged supermarket products, MEP says

 Consumers have the power to cut unnecessary packaging

Neil Parish, Conservative Euro-MP for South West England has thrown his weight behind a Women's Institute campaign being launched today to reduce excess packaging from supermarket groceries. Mr Parish said that if consumers from across the region do everything they can to avoid products wrapped in an unnecessary amount of packaging, the supermarkets will soon get the picture.

Figures released by the WI show that over 40 percent of the 434 million tonnes of household rubbish produced each year is from supermarket packaging and 17½ billion plastic bags are used each year - which take hundreds of years to break down in landfill.

Mr Parish said:

"The Westcountry is spending a vast sum of taxpayers' money trying to deal with mountains of household waste and supermarkets have a responsibility do everything within their power to ensure they provide the minimum amount of packaging on their products.

"We still need packaging to keep some products clean and healthy but too often we see groceries that are on polystyrene trays or in big boxes when they do not need to be.

"It is often far too easy for us to blame large supermarkets when the reality is they are only providing what the consumer asks for. So the next time we go shopping, if we take a little time to consider the waste we will be generating, the supermarkets will soon catch on and start cutting down on the mountains of packaging."

Neil Parish MEP Website Click Here

Cllr Justin Tomlinson, North Swindon Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, "I fully support this campaign.  We on Swindon Council work very hard to increase recycling rates, but so much more can be done to cut the source of the rubbish."