Came from New Zealand and was bemused to see the media din about carry bags when, as Jeremy says, the real issue is product packaging. I throw away *ahem* recycle about twice as much packaging here as I did back home. And I use the same number of carry bags.

Disagree with his solution though. What you really want to do is charge the product manufacturers for the environmental and disposal costs of their packaging. Then they'll think about using less packaging. That many cornflakes can fit in a box half that size.

Ben, Edinburgh,

The supermarkets must be rubbing their hands together with glee (once its out of its wrapper). The cost of carrier bags moves from being an operating cost currently recouped from the all of the paying customers to a commodity directly purchased by the punter - at a profit.

Hurrah an extra 30p out of every customer. Johnny Asda must be ordering another yacht as I type this.

Anthony, Sheffield, Peoples Republic of South Yorkshire

On the point of plastic bags - it seems absurd that supermarkets now have a deliberate policy of not allowing customers to use cardboard boxes to take their shopping home. All boxes in the large supermarkets are flattened (and presumably recycled by the supermarket) and plastic bags made available to customers.

If I could use the cardboard boxes that would get a second use out of them before I put them into the recycling bin at home. The recycling bin does not take the plastic bags.

Could this be a cynical manipulation by supermarkets to show they are "eco" by stating the tonnage of cardboard they recycle whilst handing out non-recyclable plastic to others.

Robin , Winchester, UK

Whatever happened to the Safeway 'greenboxes'?

Back in the mid-90s you signed up to the ABC card and bought (for 1 quid each or something) a pile of stackable plastic crates.

Then you picked up a scanner on the way in with a special trolley that held 3 or 4 crates and scanned the items as you put them into the crates (allowing you to group stuff together that suited how your cupboards were arranged) then you took the scanner to a special checkout where they would sometimes do a quick audit/spotcheck. Then you'd pay and take it all out to the car - no unloading of trolley to checkout, no plastic bags and much easier at the other end too.

Visionary - and about 15 years ahead of it's time.

Steven, Sydney, Australia

Completely agree with the senitment regarding litter louts, however it does amuse me that Jeremy can get "overcome" with emotion regarding visible pollutants but when you can't see it, touch it or smell it (see comments in numerous articles regarding diesel engines) then he says "I couldn't give a stuff about that".

I personally don't believe anyone can conclusively prove that man's CO2 emissions are the sole (or possibly even the main) cause of global warming but surely an effort to reduce this particular byproduct is as worthy of our attention as these other wilfully distructive activities.

Maybe we should all "give a stuff " and encourage our scientists and engineers to innovate rather than mocking an idea because it has a bunch of fanatical followers. Let not our discovery of CO2 emissions and their impact on the world be "one small step for man ... and one giant leap backward for mankind"

Mark, London,

Replace plastic bags with cloth ones. Tesco's already do the 'bag for life', so good on them, but the cloth bag is soooo much better. It is still light, won't make that crinkle noise if you keep one in your pocket all the time, and when its time is finally up, will degrade better than a plastic one.

Again in Germany, it is already law that shops provide bins for the packaging (yep, binS, one for card, one for plastic) - and, fi they sell batteries, they have to take in old batteries too. These are placed away from the tills so do not cause hold ups.

The difficult thing though, is getting the populace to accept that taking something home not fully wrapped is a good thing (apart from the struggle to unwrap it) and, more importantly for most, what about getting retailers to accept back a faulty item that is NOT in it's original packaging for exchange or warranty repair; we need to change more than one mind if this is going to work!

Tim L, Plymouth, UK

I'm a Singaporean who's been studying/working in London for the past four years or so, and must say that I am disgusted with some of the litter I see lying around. Thanks to having grown up in a country where dropping a tissue packet on public land (and not a bin) gets you a few weekends of committee service picking up other people's bits by the beach (at least it's scenic), I have found it impossible to let my waste drop to the floor, no matter how hard I try.

It seems as if my waste is glued to my hand till I reach the nearest public receptacle (often after a very long tube ride thanks to the lack of bins in trains and stations - thanks Mr. Terrorist Man).

I think draconian laws do the job. Perhaps a weekend cleaning the tube for offenders caught on tape tossing their delicates willy-nilly would keep this place cleaner.

Justin, Singapore,

I know that plastic bagsare bad. However, what do I furnish the bins around my house with?

Simon , London,

Some of us in India and Singapore use the carrier bags we get while shopping as a substitute for the small garbage disposal bags / dustbin bags at our homes. . This way, we save money on buying the disposal bags and at the same time re-use the carrier bags. And no, because we reuse it at home, we dont drop it on the road side.

Subba, Singapore,

Why would I need a plastic bag when I purchase a packet of chewing gums, if you know the answer you probably work in Tesco express!!

Paul, Cardiff,

Alex from Manchester, your comment made me laugh as I used to think exactly the same thing! It's a common misconception that Japan is litter free. Yes if you walk down the average city street you marvel at the level of cleanliness everywhere. But take a stroll down to the local river and you'll see all sorts of junk floating around. Don't even get me started on the beaches - people surfing and sunbathing alongside large pieces of industrial waste from factories that are often built on the coast!

There are very few bins on the streets in Japan and as a consequence people regularly dump their rubbish into the nearest rice paddy. You have to pay a large fee to dispose of big items like fridges etc and this also encourages tipping. Recycling rates are high but if Jeremy thinks packaging is bad in the UK he should come here - buy a bread roll and you'll get back in two or three plastic bags, all taped together to render them useless in the future. Much work still needed here too I think!

Scott, Tokushima, Japan

And everyone used to mock the old ladies that you used to see in the street on their way back from the shops with their shopping in a wicker basket hanging on their arm or in a bulging tartan shopping trolley. Sure they looked really old fashioned, but there wasn't a carrier bag in site.
I seem to recall groceries being displayed loose or in a jar and when sold were then wrapped in paper or placed in a paper bag. I even remember (shock, horror) carrying items home in my hands (!) if I didn't have a bag with me.
Old fashioned is the way forward it seems.

Yvonne, London, England

As always, Jeremy, spot on! The amount of packaging we have to dispose of is insane. But there's a solution....

Use a local greengrocer and butcher and avoid the übermarkets. Meat is wrapped in greaseproof paper (a far cry from the joint of lamb I bought in Tesbury's recently which came in a plastic container large enough to house a homeless person and his 7 dogs!) and, as someone else said, the veg is wrapped in nothing more than the mud it grew in. Furthermore, you can choose as much or as little as you want and you aren't forced into buying an industrial catering pack so it works out a lot cheaper too. Sure, a chicken will cost a bit more but you get about twice as much meat (and flavour) and no polystyrene and polythene.

What's more, it's all fresh, healthy and local and hasn't earned more airmiles than Judith Chalmers!

But this is assuming greedy Sainscos haven't moved their bland minimarts in and turned your area into a wasteland of charity shops and godawful coffee shops.

Steve, Cardiff, UK

"What we need is a strict discipline like the Japanese. Their streets are spotless."
Alex Hill, Manchester,

The streets are indeed spotless. However, it's not so much the strict culture, just that people take pride in where they live. Imagine that.......

Jimmy, Niigata , Japan

The supermarkets provide as much packaging as the customers demand. A little Easter egg in a large colourful box, adorned with ribbons and bows will sell a lot more than the same egg wrapped in a piece of foil. The supermarkets sell loose apples and they sell apples in a plastic tray – if customers stopped buying the wrapped fruit then the supermarket would stop selling it that way.

Seanie, Loughton, Bucks

I completely agree. I think that we should still use carrier bags, but ones made of starch that look exactly the same as plastic but biodegrade in 6 months. They do exist, go to:
www.lakelandlimited.co.uk. They are advertised as compost bags but could be used instead of those little bags to put vegetables in and then the peelings can be put in the bag and the whole thing put on the compost heap.

Suze, Hullavington, UK

Totally agree. My mum has a whole case full of Bags for Life, that we have to take with us when we're shopping, and when we forget them, if drives me up the wall. Bloody save the planet communists.

Christopher Jordan, Newtownards, Northern Ireland

Although I agree that amount of packaging used for Easter eggs and children's toys leaves a lot to be desired, you have to admit, the pakaging used for fruit and veg keeps it fresher for far longer than would be the case otherwise.

John, London, UK

Jeremy, I'm proud to tell you one of my fellow countrymen (a Dutchman) recently thought of a way to vastly decrease the suffering that accompanies grocery shopping. It's called the drive-in supermarket. You pull up to the first booth, give the people your grocery shopping list, you continue on to the second booth to pay the bill and at the third booth, an employee puts a cardboard box containing all your groceries in the boot of your car. You wouldn't even have to leave your vehicle!

Shamefully, being stuck with a coalition government involving the Labour party, we are still waiting on the construction of such a heavenly place.

Erik, the Hague, Netherlands

Lots of good points here, Jeremy, but those of us with memories can recall string bags and those little trolleys on wheels which just about every housewife used to have, back in the days when they would actually walk to the shops. And whatever happened to the packamac when the plastic WAS the coat, not just the stuff it was wrapped in? And the problem with litter bins, unfortunately, is that the 3am yobbo would find it just a little too tempting to set fire to.

Roy, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

They've started charging for bags in M&S now and while I'd agree this is a good idea in principle, and they're doing something jolly ecological for charity with the money they're raising, I do rather feel when I nip in there on the offchance to buy a bottle of wine and a few nibbly bits and I don't have a bag on me that the person behind the till now thinks I am some kind of simpleton. Not that 5p per bag makes a difference here or there really, given the prices in M&S, but I'm now compelled to look sheepish and roll my eyes in a "stupid me, here I am destroying the planet again - sorry about that" kind of way (something normally reserved for after the wine) as I admit I don't have one already.

But I have found a solution to the over-dressed fruit and veg from the supermarket. I've joined a box scheme, which isn't any more expensive and ensures that 99% of the time, the only packaging around the vegetables other than the box itself is the mud they grew in.

Wyvern Endacotte, Plymouth, Devon

I keep an empty wine box in the boot of my car, dont take the proferred plastic bags, just wheel the trolly to the car and transfer to the box(s) to stop the produce from rolling around. This does not of course overcome the problem of individual packaging so well described by Jeremy.

Dave, Altrincham, England

Wonderful article! Re the plastic packaging that blunts scissors; who in the name of all that's Holy invented that stuff? What was wrong with the little thin cardboard boxes - barely larger than the item within - in which small stuff used to be packed?

Mike, Brighton, England

I'm confused that Jeremy thinks we're stuck with plastic bags. I see people around that use a cotton (or some other sturdy material) bag to carry their shopping home and I think it's the best way of solving the problem. The plastic bag is only there because people are too thoughtless to carry a bag with them. Not only that, you're getting a rubbish, handle-snapping bag to haul heavy items with. Using stronger material makes it a lot easier getting shopping home, well worth the little inconvenience of purchasing something and taking it around with you. As for charging companies for littering...keep on dreaming. It's hard enough getting energy companies to stabilise their prices despite the damage to the environment they're responsible for. What we need is a strict discipline like the Japanese. Their streets are spotless.

Alex Hill, Manchester,

Most supermarkets here in Germany don't provide plastic carrier bags, or if they do, they're the thicker, more durable kind and you have to pay for them (around 10-15 cents, I think). You can also buy cloth shopping bags, so I have a couple that live permanently in my rucksack, just in case. It does mean that most of my shopping trips are planned, which is probably better, really. Although I almost never go anywhere without my rucksack, just in case! Other shops (for clothes, etc), do usually give you carrier bags, tho.

With packaging, the big supermarkets here have bins specifically for you to dump excess packaging in, which is handy. They also have a deposit system on most plastic and glass bottles- if you return them, you get 10-25 cents back.

Heulwen Price, Weinheim,

You are so funny, Jeremy!
Gabriella, San Francisco

GABRIELLA MEGYESI, San Francisco, US

i wonder if packaging is the deliberate cause of so much of what is termed anti social behaviour and a cunning plan of goverments to divert attention from the things that really drive us mad. such as worknig all week for the benifit of the tax man and paying through the nozzle for petrol. You see what packaging does is bring on a sense of worthlessness anger and rage due to the inability to open anything without the very real danger of injury, if of course we dont open the package we remain physically wel but mentally damaged, which of course leads onto anti social behaviour through the medium of alcohol which of course comes in easy to use ring pull cans that the anti socials and packagely challenged are able to open, thus fuelling their frustrations at not being able to get to their toy cars, so they then take it out on our real cars by smashing the windows and at last they are able to open something. just thought

william, minehead, somerset

Good Morning, normally I don't comment, just marvel in the thought process you put on paper each week but I just have to comment this week. I totally agree, just for once, with everything written here, normally I nod along, frequently laughing out loud but find points I could never agree with but this week you've hit the nail on the head. Something needs to be done, maybe councils could provide more litter bins but then it wouldn't stop some drunk moron at 3am chucking his polystyrene chip tray on the street, how about back to newspaper for takeaways so it can be recycled? Or supermarkets providing recycling bins at the till, letting us, the consumer, decide if we want to take bulky packaging home?. Whatever the answer is, you can bet it won't happen til some research costing us, the taxpayer, millions will declare it a national emergency and the difference it'll make to said drunken moron at 3am? None whatsoever!

Thief

Thief, UK,