I was listening to "Any Questions" the other day, and was trying to stop my toes curling - an involuntary spasm caused by the foolish inanities of Jeanette Winterson who is apparently a famous writer. Ms Winterson was telling us about protests which various environmentalist bodies had organised in order to protest at what they saw as the excessive volume of packaging produced by supermarkets. However, it can't be true that the packaging is unnecessary. Here's why.
The green argument takes two premises:
They reason therefore that supermarkets should not use so much packaging in future.
Let us observe however that supermarkets are greedy capitalist organisations. I don't think that anyone, least of all Ms Winterson, would disagree with this. We should also observe that supermarkets spend huge sums of money on packaging - which has become a multi-billion pound industry on the back of supermarkets' custom.
The question we therefore need to ask (and which Ms Winterson and her ilk need to supply an answer to) is: "Why are these greedy capitalists spending such large sums of money on something which is (a) unnecessary and (b)pisses their customers off?" Could it be that the packaging is, in fact, necessary after all? Could it be that it is actually protecting valuable products from damage or decay? Could it be that the supermarkets are actually the good environmentalists, and the Wintersons are in fact pushing us down a road that will see us wasting huge amounts of food, as happens in the third world?
Perish the thought.