The new Snap Pots from Heinz make me sad. This we have already established. But until I got in touch with Heinz to find out why it had decided to reinvent the wheel, I didn’t realise that I should have been sad about something else.

Because, according to Heinz, there are lots of people with “time pressured lifestyles” who want a “personalised portion” without having to “to hover by the hob, worry about waste or adding to the pile of unwashed pots and pans”. And, so, Heinz has responded to the British public’s “busy lifestyles” by creating the (unrecyclable plastic, remember) Snap Pots. Bravo.

“Consumers increasingly expect their food to be as convenient as possible” the Heinz press statement earnestly claims. Heinz fans have a “preference for their food to come in a convenient format” it stresses. But does that mean it ought to be pandering to the sorts of people who are so convinced of their own time-poverty?

Food-blindness is where people can look at a cupboard full of ingredients (even cans of beans) and not be able to see what will make a meal, or even what meal they could make. This is time-blindness, where people look at their evenings and aren’t able to see how they can produce a meal, or anything else, in that time.

Heinz is making more people time-blind through its own advertising. Because, of course, that’s what advertising is built to do: Sell us something we don’t need. And if you tell people with time-blindness (or food-blindness) often enough that fast is good, or healthy eating is slow, or proper cooking is stressful, then eventually a lot of them will believe it.

And Heinz uses the same argument that paparrazzi use – people demand it, and if they didn’t then they wouldn’t seek it out. But if they weren’t told to, would they even ask for it? Of course not. You’re not filling a void in people’s lives, you’re creating one. Again, the whole point of advertising.

I once lived with someone who would empty three quarters of a can into a pan, leaving the remnants forgotten on the side, then eat three quarters of the cooked beans, leaving the remnants cooling and forgotten in the pan. This person wasn’t busy, or ‘time pressured’. Just forgetful.

But I can easily see this person buying into the Snap Pot idea, convinced that it’s ‘what they need’. Then leaving three quarters of it uneaten and hurling the plastic pot into the bin. Yet they were happy enough with the tins, which could be recycled and didn’t need to end up in a landfill. That’s waste.

It’s idealistic to hope that Heinz might reconsider, that it might recognise that persuading people of the benefits of unrecyclable alternatives to perfectly usable recyclable options is incredibly short-sighted. It’s idealistic to hope that all businesses recongise that, pretty soon if not immediately, we’re all going to have to stop thinking only of short term gain and start thinking about long term consequences.

But that doesn’t mean we stop pushing, or stop trying to force these companies into realising their ignorance – and I’ll be tracking down Heinz again in an attempt to do just this. Sure, it might not change anything, but can anyone afford to give up?

Smart, sharp colleagues of mine scoff at climate change debate, predicting someone (someone else, that is, not them) will discover a technological solution, a ’silver bullet’. By the same thinking, should we just stop trying to treat cancer, and instead merely sit back and wait for someone else to discover the medicinal silver bullet too?

Recycling is a habit. Unlike climate change (or should it be Climate Change) the need for people to recycle, reduce or reuse what they consume is undeniable. There’s no fuzzy science, no grey areas. Just a mass of filthy holes in the ground all too quickly filled with stinking rubbish. And there are only so many landfills.

So. Successful recycling is about connecting with people, and helping them see that it’s a lot easier than it seems. It’s about forming habits, not forcing behaviour. You need simple processes, support from local authorities, and it needs to be a straightforward habit to learn for people who aren’t kept awake by Radley Lake nightmares. Yet.

Idiotic then, as Ecologist senior reporter Mark Anslow points out in last month’s issue, that recycling plastics is so ruddy confusing. Often you’ll see the logo on plastics, but without the important polymer identifier, and you’re very lucky if the council collection will take it away. It’s all down to sorting – bottles only come in three polymer types and are easy to sort on sight. Most other plastics aren’t that easily recognisable, and so are often not collected.

Then, you’ve got the spectacularly counterproductive “This packaging is recyclable” logos. Which show a tick, clearly suggesting that the plastic is recyclable. Only that’s not quite the case…

“Not recyclable everywhere yet.” Yet? So when? And where is it recyclable? Though it carries the link to recyclenow.com, that’s not really much help unless you know what you’re looking for. And, even then, the website won’t actually help you recycle this plastic, as there’s no polymer number.

This packaging comes from Waitrose, which reckons itself as a fairly ecological company. So does Waitrose know the details? Can it tell me where this packaging is recyclable at the moment, or when it will be recyclable elsewhere? I went into my local store to find out…

Can you tell me whether I can recycle this plastic or not?
Waitrose employee: “It’s entirely on which local authority you’re in, isn’t it? Certain local authorities will not accept certain plastics. I wouldn’t think we would know because certain branches of Waitrose may cross local boundaries.”

Do you think that people higher up in Waitrose might be able to tell me?
Waitrose employee: “I can get the duty manager…”

Duty manager: “There will be a dedicated part of the customer service that can help…”

It’s worth noting that both people I spoke to were helpful, and neither looked at me in a way that suggested they thought I was mad, over-enthusiastic or making a big fuss. Unlike the look I get from many of my colleagues at work, mostly when I’m going through their bins. This, I believe, is called A Good Start.

But I wondered if other people had spoken up, approached these employees, or perhaps made other protests.

Do you have many people wanting to talk you about recycling?
Duty manager: “Oh, yes. Lots.”

Do people often unwrap shopping and leave the packaging behind?
Duty manager: “Yes, that happens.”

How does that make you feel?
Duty manager: “From my point of view, I’d prefer if people came and talked to us about it, because it is frustrating when people are leaving things behind. But lots of people are worried about this kind of thing, and that’s totally valid.”

This made me reconsider my own intentions – I’ve occasionally unpacked needlessly packaged items and left the plastic behind, as a (very middle-class) sort of quiet protest. But am I just annoying the people who might support schemes to cut down on such packaging, and making them less likely to take an interest?

It’s obvious that local stores aren’t equipped to advise customers on recycling. And not just because supermarkets aren’t shouldering the responsibility (which, as producers of packaging, they really should be) but also because getting your head around what can or can’t be recycled isn’t nearly as easy or understandable as it should be.

Next step, Waitrose customer service line. Hopefully they’ll be just as welcoming – but of more practical use – than their employees on the front line.

I don’t want to get carried away. But there’s something just terrifying about Heinz’s new ‘Eazy Beanzy’ campaign. Not just because the idiotic need to repackage an already over-packaged item is a pure unadulterated illustration of exploitation-tastic consumerism gone mad, but also because I really want to know who the hell can’t deal with a regular can of beans?

In a tin, beans are easily prepared (stick ‘em in a pan, or zap ‘em in a microwave). They’re easily stored for a few days by squeezing the lid back down on the remaining beans. And they’re easily recyclable, as it just takes a quick rinse of the can before it can be thrown straight into the weekly recycling collection. So why (WHY?) do we need a four-pack, plastic-packaged rebranding?

Sigh. Obviously, we don’t. But there are so many marketing/advertising/promotion teams infesting the world of commerce that need to prove they have a use. So, TADA!, an ads/sales/marketing/promotions suit creates a useless, needless and worthless campaign to make it look like they actually do some work.

But the Eazy Beanzy drive is stark staring irresponsible. More plastic? More instantly disposable food? More thoughtless waste from consumers constantly pushed into new, frenetic, must-buy-because-it’s-there territory. That’s the last time I ever buy a can of Heinz anything. Double sigh.

It’s easy to be branded an eco-pain. Before Christmas, I sent out an email to everyone I had ever met at my work, reminding them in as self-conscious a way as possible that TVs, plugs, PCs and whatnot needed turning off before we all left. So I’m used to having “Hippie!” bellowed jokingly (or not so much) at me from across the office.

Which is why I didn’t feel too awkward trying to sort out a problem that, in reality, isn’t a monumental issue. The epic building site outside where I work is ringed with a fence, and the fence is dotted with electric lights. Which are on 24 hours a day, every day, all week. Sure, it’s hardly the end of the world. But it was still worth looking into.

To sort it out, I called the 0800 number advertised on the barrier. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought it through enough to note down the specifics – as in, where the hell the building site was.

–

Me: “Hi there, I’m from Bath and I’m just calling about the building site at the bottom of town.”

Considerate Constructors: “Er… Where, sorry?”

“It’s… Southgate.”

“Ok. Do you have a postcode at all?”

“Yes. It’d be BA1… Erm…”

“Do you know the names of the builders?”

“Oh. No. I don’t.”

“Is that Southgate in London?”

–

Rookie error. A good illustration of how going off half-cocked helps solve the square root of sod all. Eventually, though, I went back to get the info, and then called the number again…

The chap I spoke to was helpful – probably something to do with me actually knowing the crucial details – and did a good job of easing my worries that I might just be making a big fuss. “One site,” he told me, “actually had an electric circuit where the tools and generators wouldn’t work without the lights being on,”. Fortunately, he thought that might be a “unique” case. Yes. You’d ruddy hope so.

He noted down my point, took my name and asked if I’d like to be contacted. Always a glutton for punishment in the form of gruff, manly foremen yelling “Hippie!” into my ear (but always welcome to the idea of a tree-hugging builder) I said yes. I’ll have to wait and see if that was a good idea or not.

Think about it, though. These small, seemingly insignificant things are easy to fix and simple to solve. They don’t require the G8 or UN to bash out a ‘roadmap’ to a discussion about making an agreement. They’re perfectly doable and easily avoidable. If everyone turned off lights that weren’t needed, or simply dumped stuff they didn’t need in a different bin than before, it wouldn’t just make a small difference. It’d make all the difference in the world.

Pret a Manger, the sandwich shop with a conscience, has a plan. Its co-mingled recycling campaign is in the early stages – with trials in 3 shops underway right now – but already sounds promising, providing special bins in-store to collect every bit of rubbish then sort it out for recycling later. I’ve been told that Pret is aiming to get the scheme into 90% of its stores by the summer.

But just how effective can the scheme be? Well, according to commercial director Simon Hargraves, 96% of all of Pret’s packaging can be recycled, hinting that the instore plan ought to be hugely successful. I phoned up Simon and quizzed him on other elements of Pret’s sustainable outlook.

When do you expect the co-mingled scheme will reach Pret stores?
Simon Hargraves: “We’ve carried out several trials over 2 years. While it seems relatively straightforward, customer recycling is actually ground breaking stuff and fraught with challenges. We’re not happy with the design of the bins at present. We’re on our third version so far. Our fourth, and very likely our last, arrives for trial at the end of this month. We expect to roll out to 90% of our shops across the country by end of Summer 2008.”

Does Pret have any predictions for the success of the scheme?
SH: “96% of our packaging can be recycled, and we’ve made the scheme as easy as possible. All packaging goes into one side of the bin and all left over food in the other. There is also a hole for leftover liquids (coffee dregs, emptying cans etc). The trials have shown that customers aren’t all adhering to the simple rules (understandable) and this leads to contamination, which ultimately reduce the amount of waste that will be accepted at the recycling plants.

“We are, in effect, forcing all customers to recycle. Despite all the media attention, many are still reasonably new to recycling and not all are quite so excited about it as we might be. Our biggest challenge is compliance and acceptance. No other retailer has dared try it. We know it will take at least a year once it has rolled out to get to recycling levels that are acceptable. Customer education will be key.”

Will the scheme affect Pret’s future packaging plans?
SH: “We have a full sustainability policy. All our packaging is now designed to be recyclable, where possible, made from recycled materials and, where possible again, biodegradable too. We have worked on much material reductions over the last two years.

“The elements of our packaging that remain non-recyclable or at least non recyclable in the UK are very small. Cutlery, for instance, remains non recyclable but is small enough to be separated in the process and does not contaminate the rest. The cornstarch windows on boxes are also of small enough amount not to contaminate the process – some bio degradable items can mess up the recycling process.

“The UK is reasonably underdeveloped in this whole area. There are few industrial compost sites which means bio-plastics are an issue and usually end up in landfill. Recycling is also underdeveloped. We’ve been working with Closed Loop Recycling and Forum for the Future, as well as Envirowise to ensure that we make the right choices.”

Finally, with Pret’s link to MacDonalds, could the scheme be extended to fast-food?
SH: “Pret has no day to day link with McDonalds. They are a silent shareholder. I do know however, that only Subway in the US has tried to test customer recycling in its stores. All others believe it to be too hard and likely to fail. Fingers crossed, Pret will do better!”

Simon hits on a pearler of a point here – education will be key. My fingers are certainly crossed in the hope that Pret’s customers will be willing to learn.

When a cause comes around that really means something to you, you have to grab it with both hands. Which is why I hauled myself out of bed at 7am yesterday morning (on a day off work) to go down to Bath Spa station and take part in the Worst Late Western fare strike, organised by MoreTrainLessStrain.

The verdict? Media attention was hot – cameras, interviews, reporters, even Dom Joly of Trigger Happy TV was outside Bath station in the rising light. I caught his attention for a moment, and asked Mr. Joly what brought him to the fare strike. And then immediately wished I’d said something matey and funny like “I’M AT A STRIKE!”. Or something like that. Sigh.

Joly is making a film about rail travel – seemingly focusing on First Great Western especially. He’s had personal experience of the “ridiculously expensive” service, he told me, and he turned up to the strike because “we need to start complaining more”. He’s bloody right, too. And, all credit to him, Joly rode the Bath-Bristol line, refused to pay and got his name taken by FGW – who have yet to decide what to do with the contact details of the 100 “fare evaders”, as FGW calls them.

I wish I’d tagged along. Instead I followed the line I get when travelling to London, where my girlfriend lives, and went to Chippenham and back. Which meant I missed where the real action was, with the cow-faced protesters and all. And, worse, the only ticket inspector that got near me was delayed, and then distracted, by his broken ticket machine. Which meant my ‘fare strike’ was me presenting the Bath Spa guard my strike ticket as I left the station.

Before giving him my paid ticket. Hey, I’m all for taking part in the protest, but I don’t fancy paying the even more ridiculously expensive penalty fees. Actually, talking to a few people around, the real thing missing was a united front on the actual platforms, reinforcing that feeling of power in numbers, though I’m sure there was that sort of impact on some of the Bath-Bristol services.

Anyway, if First Great Western continue spouting meaningless and non-committal nonsense about the percentage of services improved, instead of addressing the fact that the trains are less a public transport service and more an expensive and exploitative method of lining the pockets of fat cat investors, there’ll be plenty of other fare strikes in the future!

You’ve just had soup for lunch, or perhaps coffee for breakfast. You’re left with an empty cup, seemingly made out of cardboard, which can’t be used again. So what do you do with it?

If you’re like me, they stack up on your desk, a wavering tower of guilt. It’s about time I did something about them, actually, so rather than spout another ream of green-tinged paragraphs, I thought I’d investigate if there’s an environmentally friendly way of clearing these cups from my desk…

Pret’s official website is a good start. Pret’s admirably progressive, and also good at communicating with woolly world-worriers like me. Some exploration turns up the ‘Pret Sustainability‘ page. Pret, it proclaims, “doesn’t believe in long-winded eco policies that simply don’t ring true’. So what does it believe in?

Interestingly, Pret seems to have hit upon a great idea for recycling its waste. The coffee company will “soon launch recycling in most shops”, thanks to a green campaign Pret is calling ‘co-mingled’ recycling. Which isn’t as vile as your average word-by-committee creation.

With co-mingled recycling “all product packaging can be placed in a single bin ready for sorting later at the recycling plant,” says Pret – which is fantastic news. Even local recycling schemes are limited by sorting difficulties. That’s why you’ll have trouble putting any plastics beyond commonly used drinks, medicine or toiletries bottles into your doorstep boxes.

I tried calling Pret’s commercial director, Simon Hargreaves, to ask about predictions – such as how much recycling did pret expect to be able to achieve? Except it appears he’s on holiday. I’ve left a wordy message for him, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to pick his brains in the near future.

But if Pret can do something about this mountain of discarded cups, there must be something we can do too. Pret’s site points toward an interesting London-based campaign I’d not heard of before, called Closed Loop. This admirable drive looks to cover the whole process of waste, from production to disposal. By offering advice as well as taking part in the recycling process itself, Closed Loop ought to make sustainability a fundamental part of everything we create and use.

Great, but I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my cups. Hopefully the website Recycle-More can help. Er, no – there’s no ‘coffee cup’ section, and I can’t see anything to do with recycling paper-based cutlery or the like. A quick Google search throws up info I already know, that these sorts of cups are coated, and so can’t be recycled like regular paper.

This is a great example of how we can’t simply expect people to recycle. Even greensters like myself can fail in trying to find environmentally friendly ways of dealing with the waste we produce – so how can I demand that other people take part in a process that they really don’t understand. We need educating, all of us, and we need it fast.

As for my stack of cups, for the moment it seems the only solution is dumping them in the bin. That said, the only positive solution is this – if you can’t recycle, then reduce. No more paper coffee cups for me. Even if I have to ship in my own lookalike ceramic coffee cups. Here’s hoping Pret get back in touch with some good news.

I’m an eco-worrier. What mainly plays on my mind is that – in reality – changing to a greener lifestyle is far easier than people think. Example – recycling. It’s all about habit forming, not huge effort. I’ve chivvied my housemates, who initially didn’t know you could recycle newspaper, into recyclers who even wash out the bean tins before dumping them in the box.

The biggest problem isn’t doing it, it’s knowing what and how to do it. And it worries me that we – and by we I mean all the weeping eco-obsessed Guardianista liberal lefties – can’t expect people to get on board unless there’s enough information to make it simple and straightforward. Which is why I’ve been writing a feature called Everything you ever wanted to know about recycling, but couldn’t be bothered to ask. Snappy, eh?

I’ve attempted to get it published in Bristol/Bath Venue magazine, but to no joy – admittedly, it is a bit long winded, though I’ve really worked to keep it simple and straightforward as possible. Perhaps Big Issue is more suited, though it’ll need less of a Bath/Bristol focus. But here’s an extract as an example of how I think we need to broach the issue – lighthearted but informative, not smug or overwhelming.

So what else can I recycle?

More than you’d think! The basics are simple – clean white paper, clean kitchen foil, newspapers, magazines, etc. But here are a few that aren’t so obvious:

Batteries – Bag up batteries, rechargeable or otherwise, and include them in your usual collection. Leave car batteries next to your box/bags.

Printer cartridges – Bath council will collect ink and toner cartridges as part of your regular recycling. In Bristol, you can take them to ActionAid Recycling. Call 0117 304 2390.

Mobile phones – Bath council will also take mobile phones and chargers, but in Bristol you should contact ActionAid on the number above.

Shoes – Keep them in pairs by tying them together, and sticking them with your usual collection.

Water filters – Brita filters can go straight back to Brita, who, admirably, take care of recycling them. See the Brita website for details (www.brita.net). For non-Brita filters you’ll need to contact the manufacturer for recycling details.

Tetra Paks – Juice and milk cartons made by Tetra Pak can’t be recycled normally, but you can send clean, flattened cartons away to be recycled. Follow the instructions on this website: http://snipurl.com/1nz6j.

Simple, easy and kind on the wallet. That’s what every green drive should aim to be. You can’t expect people to change just by endlessly banging on at them about landfills or how even biodegradable waste just festers inside black plastic bags. Believe me, I’ve tried, and all you get is a sore throat.

So my hat be doffed to M&S, and its Plan A campaign. This month in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire, M&S is handing out free Bags for Life to customers. Then, from the beginning of February, it’ll start charging 5p for regular plastic bags (while the BfL go back to 10p). Cue punters abandoning the endless cycle of grabbing a new plastic bag with every lunchtime KitKat purchase. (Other chocolate bars are available)

Simple, easy and kind on the wallet.

…Aside from being a self-indulgent lexical mashup, that is.

I’m trying to live green. To be as environmentally friendly as possible. I’m also trying to solve pressing problems like “What the hell do I do with this leftover paper soup cup?”, “How can I compost when I don’t have a garden?” and “Who’s going to stop the buggers who let their dogs poo outside my front door?”.

But living green isn’t easy. Not because it’s a lot of effort – it’s more a matter of habit than anything else. But because, unless you’re a bit of an ecowarrior, the whole task of making your life greener can seem pretty confusing. I know what I can stick in my recycling box, but does everyone else? And, actually, sometimes I don’t know what I can and can’t stick in my box.

So, since I’m too gentle to be an ecowarrior and too fond of cups of tea and biscuits to be a Swampy-esque frontline activist, I’m an econaut. The Econaut, if you like. An explorer in the world of going green. (And the less appealing world of stopping dog mess being left on doorsteps). And if you’re nice, I’ll bring you back a souvenir.