Home > Press releases > 1998
08 Jan 1998
The survey, by Staffordshire County Council Trading Standards, looked
at 133 breakfast cereal products. The worst offender was Sainsburys
- who claim in their Environment Report that they aim to “use the
minimum weight of packaging necessary for the packaging functions to
be met”. Their Maple & Pecan Crisp packets were only 40 per
cent full.
Other products with boxes half full or worse were:
| Sainsbury's Maple and Pecan Crisp | 40% |
| Somerfield Cornflakes | 44% |
| Sainsbury's Banoffee Crisp | 44% |
| Tesco's Triple Chocolate Crisp | 47% |
| Asda Triple Chocolate Crisp | 47% |
| Tesco Maple and Pecan Crisp | 49% |
| Safeway Luxury Fruit and Nut Muesli | 49% |
| Safeway Chocolate and Strawberry Crunch | 49% |
| St Michael Luxury Fruit and Nut Muesli | 50% |
| Sainsbury's Honey Nut Cornflakes | 50% |
| Safeway Honey Nut Cornflakes | 50% |
| Somerfield Luxury Muesli | 50% |
Friends of the Earth is demanding urgent Government action to reduce
packaging waste.
Earlier this year Michael Meacher MP, now Minister for the Environment,
stated in the House of Commons that “we need to set targets
to reduce packaging” (Hansard, 3rd March 1997, column 648).
Yet the packaging industry are campaigning against this and have recently
said that “...we also doubt whether imposing a packaging minimisation
target would help the environment” and that “Packaging
reduction has happened, is happening and will continue to happen”.
Mike Childs, Senior Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
“It's often jokingly said that the food value of cereal is
less than the box it comes in. Perhaps that's because consumers are
buying a large amount of fresh air. Despite all their green rhetoric,
supermarkets are scamming consumers and creating excessive waste through
over-packaging products. They are cereal tree killers. We want the Government
to honour its pre-election pledge and set a target for reducing packaging
and ignore the bleating by the packaging industry.”
[1] Full details of the Staffordshire Council
survey are available from Friends of the Earth or from Graham Russell
of the Council's Trading Standards Department, on 01785 259760.
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
Media team
