Wednesday 21 May 2008

Overpackaging #2 in a series

Look at my fine row of bins! But that's not why I've posted this picture. It's actually on here for the bike and my rucksack. Yes, I went shopping by bike today, to Waitrose, to stock up on a few bits and pieces of fruit and veg.

And guess what? When I'd got everything I needed and paid for it at the till, it would only just all fit in the rucksack - but the rucksack would not zip up - at all! Not good for cycling home with it on my back.

So I did what seemed to be the only reasonable thing to do, and started to remove things from their bulky plastic boxes so that they'd fit in my bag more easily (none of the stuff I bought in a plastic box& wrapper was available in the store loose, on this occasion). Sadly I didn't have my camera with me, but would have liked to have taken a photo of the neat row of boxes left on a seat in Waitrose - I bet the staff must have thought it was an anti-packaging protest! Good! In a way, it was.

Tomatoes in the cellophane wrapping, but without the silly plastic box. Why is that box even necessary?? Well, Waitrose got to keep it this time, hee hee!


Here's one that I didn't notice in the store: sweet corn in a wrapper and also on a plastic tray. Grr!

Useless item that need not exist - a sweetcorn tray.

2 comments:

Mel said...

Hi Ruby,

Good to see the rubbish project getting off to such a good start!

My own personal worst overpackaging story concerns La Senza, the lingerie store. My mum bought me some La Senza gift vouchers for my birthday, which came, as you'd expect, in a pretty gift card, in an envelope... which was then wrapped in a layer of tissue paper (with a load of those smelly wax bead thingies in), which was in a gift box, which was in a rigid cardboard packing box! When I emailed them to ask why they used so much packaging for a (paper) voucher, their rather unsatisfactory reply was that "The website states that all items are gift-boxed, so we have to."

Apparently no-one had the nous to add in "...except gift vouchers," or even "... unless you specify otherwise."

Mel

Almost Mrs Average said...

Ruby - loved your take of the bike and Waitrose ;-D

LOL Mel, I think that La Senza should be now added to a list. We haven't got a list yet but we could start one in their honour.