Councils urge government to crack down on supermarket waste

The Local Government Association (LGA) has today stepped up its on-going row with the supermarkets over packaging with the release of its third survey highlighting the continued used of excessive levels of packaging, much of which cannot be easily recycled.

The LGA commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to assess the packaging found in a typical shopping basket from eight supermarkets and found that while there have overall reductions in the level of packaging since last year supermarkets are still using far more packaging than is required.

It also found that on average 40 per cent of packaging contained in the basket of 29 frequently purchased items could not be easily recycled - a figure that has hardly changed since the LGA first carried out its survey in 2007.

The LGA said that excess packaging was making a major contribution to the £1.8bn councils will have to pay in landfill tax between 2008 and 2011.

Councillor Margaret Eaton, Chairman of the Local Government Association, said that there was a strong economic argument for curbing packaging levels. "At a time when we're in recession and shoppers are feeling the pinch, we have to move on from a world that tolerates cling filmed coconuts and shrink wrapped tins of baked beans," she said. "If we had less unnecessary packaging it would cut costs and lead to lower prices at the tills. When packaging is sent to landfill, it's expensive for taxpayers and damaging for the environment."

The LGA is now calling on the government to introduce legislation that would make retailers financially responsible for the waste they create through packaging. A spokeswoman for the LGA said that such an approach would not only help cut council taxes for householders it would also provide supermarkets with a financial incentive to cut packaging levels.

The survey found that Waitrose had the most packaging and Tesco the least, while Sainsbury's had the highest proportion of packaging that could be easily recycled, while Lidl had the lowest.

Marks & Spencers, which had been criticised following the LGA's previous survey, secured praise from the Association after moving from second to last in the league table gauging supermarkets' packaging weight to second overall.

"M&S has taken the issue seriously and shown considerable improvement," said a spokeswoman for the LGA, adding that she hoped those supermarkets now near the bottom of the league table would look to improve their packaging record.

However, Waitrose hit back at the reports methodology, arguing that it was misleading and that the company had cut product packaging weight by a third since 2001.

The supermarket said in a statement that the LGA survey had not compared like-with-like - in one instance comparing the packaging of 500g tomato punnet at Waitrose with a 250g punnet at most other stores – and accused it of not taking into account the fact that about 20 per cent of the company’s meat sales are over the counter.

"We were disappointed the LGA did not allow us to see a copy of the Report or provide us with a right to reply to the claims before it was issued," the company said. "We are currently going through the Report and believe it to be misleading."