Why packaging matters

The average household in the UK buys 4,000 packaged products a year, including food. That’s 4,000 decisions to make; not only on what product or brand to choose, but also what type of material it’s packaged in.

Last week, the Guardian published ‘Fill Good Inc – are we close to a refill revolution?’ on their website, with some really interesting stats.

The article maintained that a staggering 5.5bn household plastic bottles are not recycled each year – a far higher figure than the number of bottles recycled – while plastic-recycling plants are closing because they’re not financially sustainable.

Also according to the article, local councils collectively have to shell out some £25m a year to dispose of the unrecycled plastic bottles, so we consumers effectively pay for them twice over.

Whilst the idea of refill revolution might offer benefits and reduce plastic packaging in landfills, glass can be a straightforward sensible solution without the need of a refilling network. That is because the amount of energy needed to melt recycled glass is considerably less than that needed for virgin raw materials when producing new bottles and jars. Furthermore, glass has many other health and taste benefits too.

So next time you are doing your weekly shop, perhaps you should check if your favourite food and drink products are available in glass, and, if not, ask the supermarket or retailer, why not.