Tag: Plastic

Energy & Plastic Update

(29 April 2020) A spring in my step today as I share the nation’s joy at another child for the prime minister. I think it’s his sixth though I remain unsure.

Another bounce in my spring was that I wrote to Ofgem about the iniquity of the standing charge on energy bills. They sent back a clear and helpful response- see below (with key part underlined)

“Dear Keith,

Thank you for contacting Ofgem.

Standing charges are fixed amounts applied to your energy bills to cover fixed costs such as administration fees, provision of a meter and connection to the network, however it is not mandatory for suppliers to charge a standing charge.

Ofgem’s role does not extend to setting energy prices, including the standing charge; energy prices are determined by the suppliers themselves based on their assessment of the wholesale and retail markets. It is up to energy companies themselves to explain their prices changes and profits to their customers.”

Thus, the “Standing Charge” is basically a rip off which penalises the lightest/poorest users of energy (contrary to what is desirable) and makes it totally confusing for users to compare properly the rates from different suppliers. When public attention returns to the “new normal” it might be time to start a campaign.

The final spring bounce, which almost broke social distancing, was in a local supermarket (Morrisons). As I trudged around the shop noticing that everyone was socially distancing themselves from me to the point where minor paranoia crept in, I passed the baked beans-which last week had been unnecessarily plastic wrapped.

There is obviously someone from Morrisons amongst my tens of readers- the four packs of beans-still at the same remarkable value, were encased in flimsy cardboard. One small step etc.

To celebrate here is a link to a song (it will only work if you have Spotify on your device) https://open.spotify.com/track/1FtcntYuiBB4fGWgMM6dxb?si=–Zm_ZclQgiC7NiTWg9YRw

and a nice spring blossom picture.

Blossom

Plastic ?

(21 April 2020) Stumbling out of isolation and blinking in the harsh sun as I went on a search for marrowfat peas I started thinking about Jacob Rees-Mogg which was perturbing and one I will return to on another day. (We haven’t heard from him in a while, I hope he is all right).

I succeeded in my task at a local supermarket; thus, emboldened I went in search of tinned goods. They had tomatoes and baked beans (in separate tins). I bought some.

This is not interesting but the rant is about Unnecessary Packaging particularly Plastic.

The tomatoes were 30p each or four for a quid. All loose tins.

The beans were the same price but wrapped in quite strong plastic which was not recyclable so will be off to landfill.

The till, once it counted four tins of tomatoes, knocked 20p off my bill.

It could have done the same with the beans so there was no justification at all. One piece of plastic but it would only require 3,000 of them to pointlessly cover the pitch at Wembley (a football stadium for my continental readers).

The supermarket has over 450 stores so assuming all these baked beans are snapped up (- it was an attractive price) then this unnecessary wrapping would more than cover the football pitches of all the professional pitches in the UK. This is probably not right.

This was a small thought so to eke out my precious and diminishing supply of kittens here is a plant.