A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It was the cardboard box outside the plastic tube of toothpaste that triggered it – why the double wrapping when the tube itself would do?

And then you take a closer look along the supermarket aisles to find this sort of double-packaging is all around you.

Cereals have a cardboard outer box and a plastic bag inside to hold the actual food. There are brands of biscuits which have an outer layer and then come individually wrapped inside. Ditto sweets.

Frozen pizzas have an outer cardboard box and are then packed tight in plastic inside. You get the picture.

Fresh fruit shouldn’t need wrapping because it never has it in greengrocers or on market stalls – but in supermarkets, six apples come on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in clear plastic; bananas are in a plastic bag; grapes, oranges….

I know it prevents people pawing your fruit, prevents flies from landing, and it makes it easier to pay for them when they are pre-packaged and weighed, but really?

There’s some excuse for potatoes because it would be hard to buy them in bulk without packaging, but why carrots, parsnips, peppers, onions?

How hard would it be to hand pick a few, weigh them and put them into a paper bag – either one provided or one you brought with you? If you’re bringing your own, it could even be a plastic bag because you’re reusing it over and over again.

I’m no green warrior but I do recognise the need to protect the planet – and none of these moves would represent even the smallest intrusion into our lives.

We’ve got rid of free plastic bags at the checkout and now it’s second nature to rock up with your reusable carriers – so couldn’t we cope with another small discombobulation if it helped to save a little more of the earth?

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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