In October 2007 the Local Government Association published a survey finding that up to 40% of packaging in a typical supermarket shopping basket cannot be recycled. The research, undertaken by BMRB Social Research assessed a range of common food items from eight retailers and compared them with equivalent purchases from local retailers and market traders.

The research found that 5% of the total weight of shopping baskets was made up of packaging. It concludes that the most environmentally friendly retailers have low levels of packaging a high proportion of which is recyclable. The supermarket with the heaviest packaging was Lidl's (799.5g), while the contents of the Marks & Spencer basket had the lowest level of packaging that could be recycled (60 per cent). Asda was the best performing supermarket, with packaging weighing 714g 70 per cent of which was recyclable.

But the market was the best overall, with packaging weighing 710.5g, 79 per cent recyclable. To read the press release and to follow links to the report here.

Jane Bickerstaffe from Incpen (the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment) gives this response to the survey (reported in the subscription-only Resource Recovery Forum newsletter):

"If products are damaged or spoiled as a result of inadequate packaging, all the energy and materials in those products are lost. If we didn,t have packaging, landfills would be a great deal fuller, with damaged goods and spoilt food. Used household packaging occupies less than 3% of landfill space and companies are working to reduce it further. Its a shame that the LGA,s survey did not follow on and look at how much food arrived home in good condition and how much ended up as waste.

After all the whole point of packaging is to make sure the food is safe and wholesome all the way through to when it’s consumed. It would also have been helpful if the survey had explained that far from being rubbish the packaging saved far more waste than it generated. It should also have explained that recycling has its own environmental impact because energy and materials are used to collect, sort and clean the items for recycling. There is always going to be some packaging and other waste that shouldn,t be recycled because it will have a negative environmental impact."