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The packaging industry has used packagingnews.co.uk's Soap Box forum to blast a BBC reporter's experiment to go for a month without plastic, and called for greater emphasis on more pressing issues.

Christine Jeavens is giving up buying or accepting plastic for the whole of August and keeping an online report of her efforts.

But Tony Parry highlighted the need to focus on recycling facilities. He wrote: "We have to avoid the crankier and back to paper sides of the arguments; really good recycling facilities would save a fortune and are likely to be the only effective way ahead."

He admitted there was "some excess in some areas of packaging", but said that for the most part plastic packaging had been beneficial to modern lifestyle. "Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water," he concluded.

Pack Man picked up on the idea that Jeaven's experiment showed how modern life would be impossible without plastic. But he warned: "The problem is how people take what she says. The blog entry that no plastic reduces the waste in her bin is more likely to cause another attack on plastic rather than highlight the bigger issue of poor recycling facilities."

Walter Lewis of Faraday Packaging Partnership was critical of "giving credibility to a brainless project". "There are serious issues about how we use the world's resources. The last thing they require is this headline seeking infantile approach."

Lewis mentioned, however, that his comments on Jeaven's blog had been removed. He was not alone – a Packaging News journalist was also unable to give her opinion.

One packaging enthusiast was successful in publishing some packaging facts, sparking a heated debate with a fellow blogger.

Click here to get involved in this week’s Soap Box. We will run a different topic every Wednesday.