DUMP Awards damn supermarkets, but will we act?

The People’s Choice Award (Vic) ‘Loser of the Year’ – Safeway & Coles

Environment Victoria’s 2006 DUMP Award for poor packaging design has gone to the two major supermarkets for needlessly packaging fruit and vegetables in multipacks. Nearly 30% of people, who voted in the online survey, nominated this type of unnecessary packaging – particularly for organic produce sold by supermarkets. Click here for the “losers”.

Boomerang Alliance spokesman, Dave West, said many companies were in breach of the industry’s own environmental code of practice. The voluntary nature of the guidelines made them largely ineffective.

Environment Victoria agrees and points to the need for governments to investigate mandatory systems, expel non-compliant companies from the National Packaging Covenant and penalise those that are breaking the rules.

Victoria’s DUMP Awards draw attention to some of the worst packaging offenders on our supermarket shelves, naming many everyday consumer products that contain unneccessary, hazardous and non-recyclable packaging materials that can end up polluting beaches and waterways, contributing to landfill and threatening marine and bird life.

Do you remember those hard, thick-skinned, ‘pink’ tomatoes supermarkets sold years ago? I heard at the time they were trying to grow ‘square’ tomatoes – good volume and easy to package (!) Didn’t we loathe them…and look at the range of expensive tomatoes we’re prepared to buy today! I wonder what the tipping point is, when supermarkets start to do what consumers want? Economists would say market forces, which I suppose means we have to start supporting local greengrocers……it’s all a matter of time, inclination and perhaps communication, I suppose.