16 February 2007, 14:19 PM
  • The Women's Institute (WI) is to continue its campaign against excess packaging.

According to the Independent, the WI is to carry on its efforts to force retailers to take action against what it deems to be excess packaging.

Amy Bick, head of public relations at the WI, said of its earlier success, “The members have really embraced the campaign and, from our point of view, the supermarkets have been listening to us.

“We went to our local Tesco the other day and it was encouraging to see how many changes had been made. A lot of the food was in compostable containers but we still found some really bad examples of unnecessary packaging, like sweetcorn in plastic.”

Last June, WI members saved up packaging for a week and returned it to supermarkets saying “here, you deal with it” and says a repeat this year “is quite possible”.

Shops have already said they are acting against superfluous packaging, with Waitrose claiming it has reduced packaging relative to sales by almost a quarter between 2002 and 2005.