Carton cuts with John Monks: Politicians’ taste for a headline… and the facts

MPs have been indulging in political grand-standing for as long as there’s been press coverage and attention-grabbing headlines. Go back a few hundred years and  you’d still find honourable members shouting the odds across the despatch boxes and bamboozling the public with ill-founded views – albeit in powdered wigs and silver-buckled shoes.

The latest senior politician to promote an argument without demonstrating a full grasp of the situation Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman. No doubt motivated by a desire to curry favour with a populace fed up to the back teeth of hearing about examples of wasted resources (government quangos, second-home allowances, photographer budgets) at a time when we’re all being asked to tighten our belts, Ms Spelman recently launched an impromptu attack on “superfluous packaging” in advance of the upcoming waste review.

Apparently, Ms Spelman was moved to speak out on account of her festively fuelled amazement at the amount of gift packaging “designed more to catch the eye, than protect the products” and exhorted manufacturers and retailers alike to ensure they weren’t “using far more materials than are really, sensibly, needed”. Well, thanks for the advice, Minister. Good to know that someone isn’t afraid to remind British businesses of their environmental responsibilities and the need to keep costs down.

No matter then that the “over-packaged” item used to substantiate Ms Spelman’s assertion was, in fact, manufactured in, and distributed from, China. After all, we shouldn’t let a few facts get in the way of a good headline, and “Imported toy in excess packaging claim” doesn’t really have the same impact as “Spelman blasts superfluous consumer goods packaging ahead of waste review”, does it?

Naturally, no-one in the paperboard industry is arguing with the need to ensure that packaging is fit for purpose and avoids landfill when it’s consigned to the bin. But to wilfully ignore the many developments in packaging technology and material reduction in recent years in favour of a publicity-grabbing statement that amounts to nothing more than empty rhetoric, is just plain wrong. Get the facts straight first, Minister.

If Ms Spelman really wanted to effect a change in the global approach to packaging, she might ask her boss, Mr Cameron, to bring the subject up during his next meeting with the Chinese Prime Minister. I, for one, won’t be holding my breath, though.

If we shift the focus slightly to more positive developments, we might well reflect on the massive changes in Easter egg packaging on recent years. Once the epitome of a style-over-content approach, Easter egg packaging is now positively puritanical by comparison. Gone are the over-sized boxes and excessive vac forms of old, to be replaced by regular cartons and humble board trays that make just as good a job of holding the fragile chocolate shapes in place, use less resource and are easy to recycle.

Which is just as well, because, as a nation, we’re consuming more Easter eggs over a longer period than ever before. Based on my own observations, the old one-egg-per-child equation seems to have been overtaken by the at-least-one-egg-a-week-from-February-till-Easter menu. And that’s not including incidental creme eggs, mini eggs and foil-covered eggs. In fact, I’d better sign off and make a start now, if I’m to get through my allocation by Easter Sunday…

But while enjoying my chocolate fix, I’d rather enjoy a diet of facts. Especially if a Minister was eating her words.

John Monks is president of BPIF Cartons