Re-usable packaging

I'm a big fan of recycling, but it strikes me that we've allowed the un-acceptable to become acceptable. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked ...

I recently finished a box of breakfast cereal, and this meant that the sensible thing to do was to recycle the box, and the transparent bag within. Sensible? Probably not. Why recycle when you could re-use. After all, the purpose of the box is, is, is... well I'm not quite sure. I suspect it's to make the bags of cereal within stack nicely during transport. So, I feel the sensible thing to do would be to take my box right back to the supermarket, get another bag of cereal, and place it in my existing box.

This probably applies to many things, not just breakfast cereal. for example, I'm quite partial to pickled beetroot, and when I finish a jar I'm left with a perfectly re-usuable jar, perfectly empty, and perfectly capable of being immediately refilled with new pickled beetroot. However, the 'sensible' and 'encouraged' response it to take the jar and get my house-keeper (*) to place it somewhere that the munipality can collect it in a big truck, transport it somewhere else so that it can be sorted, melted down into glass and turned into a jar. But it was already a jar! See, why recycle when you can re-use.

(*) God bless you lupee!