Walmart has followed suit with a similar initiative to reduce packaging waste.
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Other countries with big economies and high standards of living have rejected the disposable products that make up so much of America's garbage in part because European countries hold manufacturers, not taxpayers, responsible for the costs of packaging waste.
Called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), this legislation would essentially set requirements for companies to collect and recycle a certain percentage of the packaging waste they generate, but would leave how they go about doing it up to the companies themselves.
The slump in housing construction, the decline of newspapers and a trend toward less packaging and waste all have contributed.
After reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and seeing a photograph of an albatross with its belly full of plastic several years ago, Terry started cataloguing the plastic waste she creates each year, concentrating on disposable plastics (not her laptop or television, but things like food packaging, shipping waste, straws, and so forth).
He says they saved 200 tons of waste a year with reduced packaging.
Leading retailers including Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose are supporting a government-backed initiative aimed at tackling packaging and food waste.
Edinburgh-based Vegware Ltd earned a sustainable development award for developing compostable catering packaging and reducing landfill waste in the catering and hospitality sector.
He admitted that when it came to the disposal of rubbish, "everybody who looks at what's happening with packaging and all the waste we create knows we can do better there".
Consumerism has brought with it plastic packaging and new problems of waste management.
In recent years officials have repeatedly called on manufacturers to use less elaborate packaging in order to cut down on waste and make mooncakes more affordable.
Makers of packaging have to contribute to disposal, which encourages less waste.
Many of these new "solutions" will be appearing on the supermarket shelves early next year, says Wrap - Waste Resources Action Programme - the government agency in charge of cutting packaging.
The details of the project for a "major UK retailer" are confidential but the packaging, he says, helps reduce the amount of meat waste that people generate.
The company also claims the sticks don't need as much packaging as standard laser print cartridges and so the product creates 90% less waste.
On another front, the mayor proposed banning Styrofoam food packaging from stores and restaurants and he called on the city to begin recycling food waste, which can be used as fertilizer or converted to energy.
All this waste could be easily diverted from the streets, riverbanks, and beaches, if we had the infrastructure to reclaim packaging and products at the end of consumption.
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