Selfsufficientish.com

When I was studying Environmental Protection some years ago we studied Environmental law and legislation at some length. One of the biggies was the packaging regulations that stated quite clearly that producers should keep packaging to a minimum and tied up nicely with the "polluter pays principle".

Before christmas I bought a bag of frozen tuna steaks - handy to have in the freezer. This evening I opened the bag and found six minute (that's tiny not 60 seconds) steaks all individually shrink-wrapped in bags large enough to fill up a lot of space in the outer bag. After undoing them all the rubbish nearly filled a carrier bag!

I didn't sign up for the rubbish reduction year because I'm a bit stuck shopping in places where they shrink wrap meat, fish and often veg - though I try to avoid those where possible. So while I expect some packaging this is ridiculous.

But there's a conflict here. Hygiene rules against packaging rules. Or so the shops would tell us. We are told that the packaging is to prevent contamination and food waste. Which seems to be in direct conflict with what you have learned.

Obviously a conflict of interests here.

Mind you - it's equally hard to buy unpackaged vegetables. Even where you can buy things loose, it seems to cause awful hassle if you want say a pound of peas in the pod - now there's something you couldn't swipe through the supermarket checkout without a bag even if you can manage other items like apples and carrots loose. Even the market traders sell packaged now (I'll bet they've been checked by trading standards and told that their mobile scales aren't accurate so they weigh and pack on an approved scale before setting out). And this will be blamed on the EU because this usually gets sympathy from the uneducated, unthinking public.

I'm virtually vegan and still shaken at how much packaging comes with what I buy. Because I'm in a small rural town there are no facilities or local shops where you can buy pulses or dried beans to go into your own container. The local supermarket only sells small sizes because most of their customers are older and seem to work in smaller sizes. Well obviously this a captive market who can't go elsewhere or shop online - those who want to buy in larger sizes will go elsewhere or shop online.