Category: Environmental Issues

Binning the bin tax – what a rubbish idea.

Listening to the radio on a Monday morning should be relaxing, but I am feeling quite angry.  The new government are scrapping the plans of the previous government to make us all pay for what we throw away, replacing it with incentives to recycle.

So, instead of reducing the amount of rubbish we are creating we are now going to be rewarded for buying more stuff and how are we going to be rewarded – we will get vouchers to buy more stuff – a vicious circle.  If you don’t buy very much, then no rewards for you – we need you to buy things – after all, that is what our economy is built on – shopping.

Do I think recycling is a bad thing?  Certainly not, but I think we should be at a point now where not recycling is unheard of, unthought of.  We shouldn’t have to be rewarded for recycling.

What I do think is that if you throw things away you should pay for it – after all you are taking more landfill and more of that scarce resource – space.  It is the only way to make people think about what they are buying and why.  I understand the argument, there would be more flytipping, and burning of rubbish or putting it in the neighbours bin  – then we will have to be more vigilant.

The pay as you throw works in Belgium – why are we not capable of managing such a scheme.  While it may not be the best way, it is surely a start in the right direction.

A word about the BP and oil.

Despite trying to earn my environmentalist stripes, I admit to not following the events of the coast of Louisiana too closely.  It is not because I don’t think it is important, but more because I think its potential importance is largely being missed, certainly by the traditional media.

Firstly, it is not the worst oil-related disaster, whilst it has apparently leaked about twice the amount of oil as the Exxon Valdez oil spill which I remember watching news coverage of as a teenager, (oh for the days of John Craven’s newsround) the Exxon Valdez is still considered a relatively small oil spill.  However, from an ecological point of view any spill has to be a potential disaster.  Not only is there the problem of the oil to deal with, and the area over which the aforementioned dealing has to happen, there is also the effect of the burning of the oil and the residuals from the dispersants to deal with.  All in all I am sure that most people (even the manufacturers of the dispersants) would agree, it is not a good thing.

There is a lot of blame being levelled at BP, and, rightly so.  It would appear that they did not include such an incident in their risk planning – but then, with the deafening silence from the other oil companies, other than we will help if we can and we should make sure this never happens again, one can assume that it was not in the risk planning of any of the oil companies.  It is just a stroke of luck for them that it happened to BP first.

A lot of the adverse publicity seems to be emanating from the American government – but they do not appear to have any better ideas either, and, I assume that they have profited from the jobs and licenses that result from the deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

My main point, which I am eventually getting to, is that if we are blaming BP for drilling, and we are blaming the American government for its inaction (which apparently some Americans are), then why are we not blaming ourselves?  We bitch and moan about the price of petrol and the excessive profits that the oil companies make, but we can do something about it.  We can stop buying as much fuel, we can stop insisting that our pensions are worth more every year, we can demand that we pay more for our fuel and that some of the revenue is used to undertake deep sea research to stop disasters on this scale occurring.  But we won’t, we will carry on regardless, watch the pictures on the TV and then hop in the car to run an errand.

Perhaps it is time the true cost of oil related products was revealed, and we started to think about whether we think the environmental devastation that comes with any sort of extraction of natural resources is a price worth paying.

Flat Fish

OK, so tinned tuna can be OK, depending on the way it is caught (assuming it is Skipjack tuna) cod and haddock, not so sure, bit debatable; this time it depends not only on the method of catching – line caught only please, but on the place where it is caught.  Next on my list, purely because they are fish that are commonly sold and that I enjoy(ed) eating are sole and plaice, both, unfortunately, featuring on the Greenpeace red list.

So, for starters, these are both flat fish, and, as such, live along the sea bed.  This means that they are usually caught by beam trawling.  This is a particularly destructive form of fishing for numerous reasons.  Beam trawling involves dragging a large beam across the ocean floor behind which is pulled a large net.  Typically trawlers pull one net on each side of the boat.  Some also have ‘tickler chains’ in front which stir up the ocean floor so more creatures are caught up in the following net.  As you can imagine this is a pretty indiscriminate form of fishing and the bycatch including immature fish, crabs, coral etc is huge (up to 70% by weight).

However, there is an alternative, Danish Seine fishing, which is less damaging to the ocean floor and uses less fuel than beam trawling (hurrah).  This uses a conical shaped net to catch the fish; although there is some ocean floor damage and some bycatch it is much less than the alternatives.  Gillnets are also a better option, these catch the fish in the mesh of the net, obviously, the mesh has to be of the correct size so that small fish can swim through.

So, onto the sustainability of the fish themselves.  Plaice – current advice is to avoid fish from south west Ireland, west of Ireland, western channel and Celtic sea fisheries, whereas those of the  Irish sea are thought to be sustainable.  However, there is conflicting advice on North Sea stocks, Greenpeace stating that beam trawling in this area has caught too many small fish and stocks are unsustainable whereas the Marine Conservation Society currently states that North Sea stocks are ‘healthy and fished sustainably’ – no wonder eating fish causes such a moral dilemma!

Sole – advice at the moment is that, again, beam trawling has had a massive impact on stocks, and the North Sea and Irish Sea stocks are depleted, so best avoided.  Choose fish caught with more sustainable methods, avoid small fish and avoid fresh fish caught between April and June.  Both Greenpeace and the MCS claim that Celtic sea stocks are sustainable (if, like myself you are not wise in the ways of seas, the Celtic Sea is that part of the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland and the south-west coast of England and Wales).

So, where to buy the holy fish grail?  At the moment I cannot fully answer that but hope to have a more in-depth review of all of the supermarkets in the coming months.  Having looked at the websites of the ‘better’ supermarkets, Waitrose and M&S, it appears that Waitrose use only Danish Seine methods and are no longer using smaller fish, although M&S are ‘leading the drive to reduce the use of … beam trawls’ (does that mean they do use them or not?) – it would appear that Waitrose are ahead of them there.

Waitrose fish is from the North East Atlantic, and M&S is from the North Sea, English Channel and around Iceland.  Are these sustainable fisheries – the packaging claims that they are, and the North East Atlantic and Iceland are not mentioned in good or bad terms on the MCS or Greenpeace websites, the English Channel and North Sea being more questionable.   A quick Google search reveals the North Atlantic area to include parts of the Atlantic west of Ireland, areas north east of Iceland and a pocket in the Norwegian Sea.

So, my conclusion, plaice and sole are in trouble, mainly due to unsustainable fishing methods, and, those caught around the British shoreline seem particularly at risk.  The information about flatfish from other areas is not so clear, but this may be because they are of less immediate concern.  As ever, it appears the fishing methods are crucial and any fish caught by beam trawling, and, I would go so far as to say any fishmonger who sells fish caught using beam trawlers, should be avoided.  I feel a little more at ease buying my lemon sole or plaice from Waitrose, but I will probably be doing so less often than previously (perhaps once a month), M&S still don’t get my vote as they seem to be behind Waitrose both on fishing methods and sustainable fisheries.

Thoughts about Copenhagen and Kyoto.

Copenhagen left me puzzled, not by the lack of agreements from the parties involved, but by my own ambivalence towards the whole thing.  After all, I am supposed to be an environmentalist, I should have been avidly following all the reports, debating the successes (if there had been any) and failures.  In truth, I paid no attention to it, yes, I read some of the pre-meeting reporting, added a tck tck tck ribbon to my Twitter image, agreed that time was running out and we needed an international resolution, but I didn’t actually think that anything would happen there.

In the meantime I have just finished reading a book (Why We Disagree About Climate Change) which has helped me to clarify my thoughts about Copenhagen.  The basis of the book is that everyone has different priorities in life, and perceive the risk of Climate Change differently depending on their circumstances, nothing that is not obvious there.  However, one of the later chapters talks about how the idea of an all encompassing agreement at Copenhagen was flawed and was never going to happen.  Climate Change has now been altered from a physical manifestation into something more, it is linked to world poverty, economic development and even to religious beliefs.  With so many facets to the problem (a so-called ‘dirty problem’) how will we find one solution, a magic silver bullet that will fix everything.  The plain answer is that we won’t and, while we are convinced that we will (i.e. we will get  an extension to Kyoto) we will stop looking at the solutions to the parts of the problem that we can fix.  OK, they may not be the ultimate best answer, but making some progress until something better comes along is surely better than waiting for a solution that may never come.

For example, why was deforestation under discussion?  Surely most people believe that it is wrong, so why wasn’t an agreement made by the interested parties, does someone in Iceland have to agree about rainforest destruction?  I am sure they agree that it is bad, but put it in with something they don’t agree with and they will vote against.

I have come to the conclusion that I, personally, if I am honest, don’t care about climate change.  Any changes to be seen in my lifetime are likely to be already set in motion, I don’t have children and therefore have no future generations to directly care about.  I do, however, care about other things that are affected by or do affect climate change.  I care about needless waste, lack of energy resources, reduced levels of oil available for the important things because we have wasted lots for electricity and transport, loss of biodiversity, lack of water, lack of available education and the fact that there are just too many people on this planet to consume as much resource as we do, but climate change – not really.  Start to look at solving these problems individually and then we will solve the problem that we perceive to be climate change and, if not, we will still be making the world a better place.

Tinned Tuna

There has been a lot of publicity about the imminent demise of tuna in the last year.  Whilst most of the attention has been on Bluefin tuna it opens a whole can of worms with regard to the tuna usually bought in UK supermarkets.

So, what are the different types of tuna and which ones do we commonly eat (fortunately Greenpeace has a helpful guide).  There are 23 types of tuna, and, according to Greenpeace, 22 of them are vulnerable.  The main market for the aforementioned Bluefin is Japan which takes 90% of the catch.  In the UK we consume some Yellowfin Tuna (sold as steaks at the fresh fish counters and in some tins – to be avoided if it is not caught by sustainable methods) along with Albercore and Skipjack (also in tins).  By far the most common is Skipjack which is also the tuna most likely to be found in ready meals and pre-prepared sandwiches.  The UK is the second biggest consumer of tinned tuna (after the US) and so I will concentrate on this source.

Following on from the publicity, there have been declarations of never eating tuna again, no more tuna sandwiches, but is this entirely necessary.  According to the Ecologist, it probably is, according to Greenpeace, on whose survey the Ecologist article was largely based, tinned tuna need not disappear from our collective menu.

So, just what is the problem with tinned tuna from a sustainability point of view (ignoring the potential problem of mercury in fish)?  A lot of tuna is caught in large nets or by lines up to 100km long.  We all remember the adverse publicity that came from pictures of dolphins caught in the net and the advent of ‘dolphin-friendly’ labels on tins of tuna.  However, dolphins are not the only bycatch of the tuna industry, other marine species that are caught include several species of turtle, sharks, rays and young tuna.  These together constitute about 10% of the catch with some fishing methods, which is where most of the problem with eating Skipjack tuna lies.  Much of the tuna fish destined for the tinned market is caught using large nets (purse seines) with floats on to encourage the fish to gather together which is where this bycatch is at its worst.

What can we, as consumers, do about this?  There are more sustainable methods of fishing, such as pole and line, which target the adult fish and therefore avoid much of the bycatch.  These also tend to be smaller outfits that are more likely to support local projects and which will look after local fish stocks, being unable to move to other areas once a resource has been used up.  Therefore, always look at the label to see what kind of tuna it is – if it is yellowfin, is there a skipjack alternative (these are more numerous than yellowfin)?

Tinned TunaNext look at the method of fishing.  Waitrose, have recently introduced an own label tinned tuna which is clearly marked as being caught by pole and line methods.  If they don’t state on the tin, assume the worst – with the recent publicity it is in their interests to tell you if it is a sustainable method.  John West and Princes are the two largest brands in the UK, they were bottom in the recent Greenpeace survey and do not seem too interested in changing their ways. I checked John West, in most cases they do not state either the type of tuna or the method of catching it.  On the contrary, Sainsbury’s who came top in the original survey have gone 100% own brand  pole and line and introduced a branded pole and line range.  M&S are also moving to 100% pole and line for their own brands and are extending it to the tuna used in their sandwiches, salads and ready meals.  The other supermarkets seem a little less responsive, maybe they will catch up.

I have recently written to Waitrose, my supermarket of choice (as I only have Tesco and Aldi as local alternatives) asking them to stop stocking other brands which do not conform to their own standards (ie John West), I doubt that they will do this, but, if sales of this brand were to drop relative to their own, more ethically produced brand, then maybe they will think again.

So, I don’t have to stop buying my tinned tuna, I just have to be a little discerning and boycott the larger brands in the hope that declining public opinion and sales will give them a reason to look at their social responsibility.

Baby Steps

Today is Blog Action Day, the theme this year is Climate Change, influenced no doubt by the upcoming Copenhagen summit.  These days it is hard to go through an entire day without finding a reference to Climate Change or Energy Saving, the Energy Saving Trust even has an annoying advert on the television.  I am not sure how much all of the reminders and the small snippets that appear on the news will make a difference.  I think there are two major problems; firstly people get bored with hearing about how we are all doomed, there is often the feeling that there are enough things to think about in life as it is, why worry about climate change when there is nothing we can do about it anyway?  It is everyone else that is causing the problem, besides, the worst will happen elsewhere in the world, and probably not in my lifetime.

Then we come to the second problem: what can you do about it that will make a difference?  There is so much information out there, some of it conflicting, that it can be difficult to know where to start and who to believe, no matter which level you are at in terms of ‘green-ness’ it can be confusing.  It is probably easier to not bother yet, better wait until more information is out there, until the ‘experts’ make their minds up.

The problem is, time is ticking and we all have a responsibility, why waste resources when it is just as easy not to, why waste money just because it is too much effort to turn a light out when leaving a room?  If you can make the changes at home then take these good and virtuous habits to work – your example can make a difference, I have seen it happen.

So what practical changes can you make?  How long have you got?  Everything you use, whether it is energy, water, fuel, food, resources such as paper, they are all, to some extent, finite, we can’t replace them all at the same rate that we are using them, and the planet cannot absorb all of our activities as they currently stand.

Firstly, energy.  Turn lights off, don’t leave things on standby, only leave your mobile etc plugged in for as long as it takes to charge (you’d be amazed at how many people leave them in overnight – they don’t stop drawing power because the battery is fully charged), turn your computer and monitor off when you leave work.  One of the best things you can do is to buy an energy monitor – they will help you find where energy is being wasted.  Want to think bigger – try switching energy supplier to one that uses renewables – they may not be the complete answer to our problem at the moment, but the more that is invested the bigger the improvements that will be made in the technology.

Water – old fact, but, 9 litres of water for every flush if you don’t have a dual flush toilet, put a bottle of water in the cistern to reduce the level down, save water and money at the same time.  Fit a water butt to your drainpipe to use for garden watering – they may look a bit unsightly, but, lets face it, so do satellite dishes, but most of us find somewhere to put one.  Don’t leave a sprinkler on your garden for hours – grass is hardy stuff, that’s why it is used for lawns, it doesn’t need constant watering and nobody else notices how green your lawn is!

Fuel – School run- why are there so many people dropping their children off?  Can’t they walk, I worry more about people being run over by someone on the school run than about other dangers facing children today.  How about just walking to work once a week for a change.  I would suggest public transport, but in Daventry, unless you are willing to set off 24 hours in advance it is a little pointless.  Planes – I love planes, I think they are a fantastic feat of engineering – but they are used too much and deliver their pollution to just the wrong place.  I can’t go on one again, maybe you can, but just one return transatlantic trip would double our household carbon footprint for the year (in terms of gas, electricity and transport) – I don’t think it is worth it.

Food – one of my major worries.  Why buy food only to throw it away?  There is a lot of talk in the press about food security and can Britain feed itself.  We probably can’t, we probably shouldn’t, our national income increased when we started trading with the world; there are some things that can be done better elsewhere.  But there are things we are good at growing, and, if we stopped throwing so much away we could grow all the staples that we need.  After all, the Romans didn’t invade us all those years ago because they were fed up of living somewhere dry and sunny!

Resources – whether it is paper in the office, packaging on our food, why is there so much that we are throwing away?  Admittedly the levels of recycling have grown massively, and Daventry District Council should be applauded for its household recycling (although, if you are a business, tough, you have to sort that out yourself), but wouldn’t it be better to just use less.  Does your broccoli really need a bag to make sure it gets home safely, does your Easter Egg need so much cardboard and plastic that your child could live in it?  I don’t think so.

So, what has this to do with Baby Steps?  If we all make a small change, one step at a time it will make a difference.  Then, if we make the next step, and the next step who knows what kind of change we can make?  There are so many resources out there if you need help.  If, as recently reported, the onset of power shortages has been put back by 3 -5 years because of the recession, an unintentional change in our habits, what can we do if we really try?

Eagle Owls – Good Press / Bad Press

Eagle Owls (Bubo Bubo) are certainly impressive creatures, their six foot wingspan making them the largest owl in the world.  They breed in many parts of mainland Europe and have reared young in the UK with intermittent success.

The latest copy of British Wildlife magazine popped through my letterbox yesterday with a feature article about these owls and a debate about the consequences of reintroduction.  This is where a problem lies, these are not birds that have naturally bred here for more than 2000 years, if, they ever did.  Why then, would anyone want to reintroduce them?  It is not the same as reintroducing cranes or beavers, creatures that were native and doing very well until we killed them all for food or hats or other such essentials.  These are birds that have never played a part in the food chain in the UK.

So, is there a problem with introducing them and how have they got here in the first place?  To answer the second question first, the pairs breeding in the UK are thought to be escapees from captivity (one female has successfully reared 23 chicks in Yorkshire).  According to the magazine article, there are over 3000 Eagle Owls in captivity in the UK, but they don’t need to be registered with at least 80, but probably many more, that are unaccounted for.  To me, that is quite worrying, these are a top predator, and we don’t know how many there are or where they are.  Equally worrying is the speculation that the breeding pairs may have been purposefully released in order to establish a wild population in the UK, however well-intentioned, there are too many unknowns in such a course of action.

The problem with having them loose in the countryside is that although they have a varied diet and tend to live mainly on rabbits, with which I am sure most people would agree we are amply supplied, they also predate other birds of prey and have prevented successful nesting of native birds such as peregrines and the rather rare (and recently showcased on Springwatch) Goshawk.  The Eagle Owl also needs quite a large territory, I am not sure how many of those are available in the overcrowded UK, probably not enough to support a viable population, is it fair to release birds that don’t have much chance of surviving for more than a generation or two?

Then there is the press to contend with.  No matter how you feel about such things, headlines such as the Telegraph’s 2008 “Eagle Owl terrorising village’s pets and children” does not do any good at all and may lead to someone going out with a gun and shooting the poor bird.  (For the record the bird was an escapee, with jesses still attached, which was probably used to being around people, and as far as I can tell had not gone near anyone’s pets but had tried to land on a small child.)

But, is the debate a little late?  If the birds have been successfully breeding in several areas of the UK for the last couple of decades, the latest being in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire where they have successfully reared chicks for the last couple of years, are they already here and likely to stay?  Whilst I don’t want to see the release of flora and fauna that have never been native, I would hate to see them hunted down just because of a perceived threat.  I would like to see more responsibility from the people that own these creatures in captivity and a little thought to go into their actions and their likely consequences.

Why should I care?

This is a question that my green conscience devil has been asking from my left shoulder whilst my green conscience angel is sitting on my right shoulder urges me towards more environmentally friendly ways and puts causes such as the World Land Trust and the plight of bumble bees in front of me.  After all, I don’t have any children to leave the planet to, no one is likely to remember me when I am gone, and that is just fine.

He (I am assuming the devil is male) asked that question again this morning whilst I was listening to Farming Today.  There was an interview with a dairy farmer who was thinking of leaving the business after the price they were being paid for their milk was reduced by 3 1/2p per litre.  Over the last twelve months I have become increasingly concerned about the amount of food imported and the loss to the rural communities with the reduction in UK agriculture.  I therefore studiously gaze at labels in Waitrose before making a purchase, buy British whenever possible (bananas are not an option in the UK so I buy Fairtrade) and don’t buy imported produce just because it is out of season here.  Imagine my face when the lady in question admitted that when she bought cheese from the supermarket she didn’t look to see the country of origin!  For goodness sake, if I can spend time looking at labels when there is no direct effect on my livelihood I expect that those in the industry would do their bit to support themselves and their colleagues.    Hence my question, why should I care?

I had a discussion along similar lines with a work colleague today about air travel – I won’t see the worst of the effects of global warming, and I have no children, why am I trying to make a difference for his future generations.  I don’t know the answer, I just know that if there is a choice I need to do the right thing, whether that is buying local food, supporting good causes or not flying around the world.  I need to do the right thing whatever sphere it is in, because I have a choice whereas others around the world don’t.

I apologise if I am preaching, but if people directly affected don’t take the time to think about their actions, how are we going to persuade those who are not directly affected to change their actions, or at least think about them more?

Bitterns – booming good news.

When I was younger I heard various references on the television to booming bitterns (I watched quite a few nature programmes as a child). I have never seen or heard a bittern, but, as I don’t live near a reed bed, I am not surprised or too disappointed (although I have seen reports of one at Brandon Marsh, so maybe one day…).

I have always thought of them as secretive and elusive, but never as incredibly rare in the UK, which is what I discovered when reading an article in the June 2009 issue of British Wildlife. The RSPB website estimates that there are 75 breeding (booming) males, but the magazine article puts the number of nest sites as closer to 40. So, why the interest? There are two reasons.

Along with many other species of animals and birds, bitterns used to be quite common, and, yes, you’ve guessed, they used to be regulars at the dinner table. However, bittern pies and the decline in suitable habitat (reedbeds) led to their extinction, although they resettled in the 1950s and have been making a slow and steady comeback.

The second reason is linked to climate change. By far the majority of the current breeding population is in Suffolk – that LOW lying part of the country. There is a fear that the increased possibility of storm surges in this part of the country poses a major threat to the reed beds that are frequented by bitterns. (Did you know that the Thames barrier, when first built in the 1980s was operated approximately once a year, more recently it is in use 6 times each year because of increased storm surges.) The worry is that saltwater incursion from high tides and storm surges will make the reedbeds uninhabitable for many species, including the bittern.

However, there is some good news. Bittern numbers have increased since a major initiative was launched to safeguard their habitats, and, at a faster rate than was initially hoped for. The RSPB, Natural England and the Wildlfe Trust are joining forces to make new habitats for the bitterns away from the coast. It is hoped that by siting these close to current nesting areas some pairs will move over. They are also trying to make sites which have booming males but no evidence of nesting activity a little more attractive in the hope that the forlorn male will have more chance of attracting Miss Right – more fish maybe.

In addition they are allowing nature to take its course – some sea defences (shingle banks) which were naturally formed have been buggered about with by well intentioned people resulting in a change of profile. This was in the misguided hope of boosting sea defences, but it hasn’t worked, the water has still breached the defences, vegetation hasn’t colonised and the water hasn’t been able to percolate away – bit of a mess really. At last common sense has prevailed and we are learning that nature made something for a reason.

So, fingers crossed for the bittern and its associated friends that live in the reed beds, hopefully we will soon know how many and where they are and give them a chance of survival, if not a sea view.

Pig Business

Last night, encouraged by a myriad of twitters and tweets, I tuned in to watch Tracy Worcester’s ‘Pig Business‘, an exposé of the pig industry.

For those of you who did not see it, Pig Business was a relatively objective film highlighting the activities of Smithfield, one of the US‘s largest suppliers of meat, as it started up operations in Poland, where it has bought up a number of farms and meat processors in the post communist era.

The film concentrated on two main themes; surprisingly, animal welfare did not seem to rank as highly as the Industry’s impact on human health, or the loss of a traditional way of life for Poland’s many small farmers.

Human health issues were linked to the practice of spraying the pig excrement onto nearby fields from a series of lagoons, a method that is now banned for new facilities in the US due to the ill health suffered by nearby residents; needless to say there were similar complaints in Poland.

Predictably, the number of independent farmers was also on the decline, as they cannot compete with the sheer scale of the operations and were, in the main, not prepared to house their livestock in similar intensive conditions. An interesting point made by an American campaigner, suggested that this competitive edge would be seriously eroded if the intensive producers had to pay the full environmental cost of their operations; a point coming into sharper focus in most industries today.

On the lack of sentimentality I would like to applaud the film makers as many people are unconcerned by animal welfare standards or the resulting quality of the intensively raised food. As Tracy stated in the film, food has started to become a commodity: people are only interested in the cheapest price, and this is a point on which I can become quite agitated if drawn into a debate.

Over the last few months, and particularly during the European elections, there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with eastern European immigrants coming over here and taking our jobs.

Why do people not equate their purchasing decisions, and the constant drive towards price reductions, with the loss of jobs in the UK? This film made it plain to me that it’s these same decisions that prevent the same immigrants from making a living at home, unemployment was very high: jobs in agriculture have plummeted to realise the efficiency gains needed to provide us with cheap food.

Why can we not accept that food should have a minimum cost, buy a little less, eat a little less, keep people in jobs, and enjoy better quality food. Paying more might make us think twice about throwing things away.

Capitalism is a double edged sword, and it is easy to blame everything on evil Corporations, but the truth less comforting: they have to sell what we as consumers will buy. If we change our behaviour we would surely all be winners?