Do not post crisp packets to Walkers, says Royal Mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Royal Mail has stepped into a row between environmental campaigners and crisp manufacturer Walkers - by urging people not to post empty crisp packets.

Campaigners urged people to post crisp bags to the firm, in protest against them being non-recyclable, and "flood Walkers social media with pictures of us popping them in the post".

Royal Mail is obliged by law to deliver the bags to Walkers' freepost address.

But they cannot go through machines and must be sorted by hand, causing delays.

Campaign group 38 Degrees, which encouraged people to post their crisp packets back to Walkers, has been asked to comment.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "We strongly encourage customers not to post anything into the postal system which is not properly packaged.

"Crisp packets can't go through the machines, they are not normal mail items therefore my hardworking colleagues need to manually sort them, which adds to time."

People have been taking selfies of themselves posting the crisp packets and putting them on social media with the hashtag #PacketInWalkers.

It follows a petition hosted by 38 Degrees which called for Walkers to make their packets recyclable.

Are the alternatives any better?
Image copyrightPA
Susan Selke, director of the School of Packaging at Michigan State University, said crisps needed a very good oxygen barrier because of their high fat content and other packaging alternatives may have greater overall environmental impacts.

"From looking at the Walkers website, it appears that their packaging is similar to that used for the majority of snack foods," she said.

Such products are commonly packaged in metallised PET or metallised PP, which are both metallised films.

"Because of their fat content and the potential for rancidity, chips [crisps] need a good oxygen barrier," said Dr Selke.

"The old alternative was paper or plastic laminated to aluminium foil, usually coated on the inside with a plastic layer for heat-sealing. This structure would also not be accepted for recycling in most cases, is much heavier, and will have greater overall environmental impacts, for a variety of reasons, so it would not be an improvement."

She said more rigid packaging could be used to provide a good oxygen barrier but this would result in more material being used.

"Several studies have shown that most of the environmental impact comes at the production end, not the disposal end, so again overall environmental impact would likely be increased with these alternatives, even if recycling went up," said Dr Selke.

[Jpro747]

So what if they have to be manually sorted. More work = more jobs so that’s a good thing. Don’t Walkers pay RM for every item they get sent back to them anyway?

[rubberbond]

Exactly , it's a win, win , free publicity ,mail volumes up , environmental concerns addressed although what Walkers will do with all these bags I don't know., burn them probably. What's not to like.

[k979aaa]

I hate it when people post crap in letter boxes some of these people are the most belligerent bastards on earth they think they have a right to ruin everybody's day just because it's in a good cause. Not only that most of them have never done a days work in their lives posting crap like kickers and condoms and crisp packets it never ceases to amaze me how the depths of depravity have corrupted the nation In which was a Great country when I was bought up in. And some of these fools run our government councils and the NHS as well as the police service they just make lives hell for people for the sake of it time is told when we avenge these parasites who cannot be arsed to find a bin or cannot control their urges for the crisp isle at Tesco's IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH THE PACKETS DON'T BUY THEM!

[Mr Rush]

Can't they just hire a dump truck to take this to Walker's themselves? Wasn't that the plan with those AOL trial discs back in the day? Better publicity stunt too.