A load of old rubbish

I do however value the world we live in and feel slightly guilty I don't do as much to protect it as I could.

When it comes to recycling, I do a bit but not enough. That probably goes for a lot of you out there.

Rother District Council took the cockle-warming step recently of supporting other councils in discouraging plastic bag use.

They have also pledged to write to retailers reminding them to do their bit.

All very commendable and, as a certain supplier of plastic carrier bags would say, 'every little helps.'

Don't get me wrong, using less carrier bags is a good thing. We can all cut back a bit and help out the environment.

The hypocrisy from the large supermarket chains on this is quite outstanding though.

Sure, they produce their bags for life and make all sorts of positive signals.

A shame then they cover almost every product they sell in a raft of damaging plastic or cardboard.

The waste produced from this packaging far outweighs the number of carrier bags out there used by Joe Public.

As well as the rubbish covering their own products, they could also discourage other producers who sell goods on the shops floors.

It's a quite brilliant example of passing the buck.

Consumers are told to cut back and protect the environment, but the big chains can create untold clutter which, in many cases, is wholly unnecessary.

A fine example for you - pizzas. Now, I like pizzas. They've sustained me on many a night when I can't be bothered to do a lot of cooking, but has anyone noticed the amount of packaging involved? Given that it's frozen and in a box, does it really need to be wrapped in cellophane? And what's that polystyrene disc all about? As far as I can tell, the only useful purpose it serves is to stick to the base of the pizza, leading you to forget about it and create an unfortunate smelling, oven-based incident (it only happened the once, ok?).

According to a report by the Local Government Association up to 38 per cent of waste in a typical shopping basket cannot be recycled.

And I don't think any amount of stiff letters from Rother will change that.

So I guess we need to find the motivation to do something about it ourselves. Consumer power and all that.

Although I'd be uncomfortable with the idea of giving up pizzas.