More virtue signalling is upsetting the Post Office and I can understand why.
A Royal Mail spokeswoman said: “If an item is addressed properly and carries the correct postage then Royal Mail is obliged by law to handle and deliver the item to the stated address.”
“We strongly encourage customers not to post anything into the postal system which is not properly packaged. And if they are taking part in this campaign we would urge them to put crisp packets in an envelope before posting.”
Okay so someone has dreamt up a campaign to encourage Walkers to speed up their promise of recyclable packets, but hasn’t actually thought it through.
The petition was set-up by retired teacher Geraint Ashcroft from Pontypridd, who told the Leicestershire Live website: “I have always recycled crisp packets but I was shocked to learn that they weren’t actually recyclable. People don’t want this stuff going into landfill and they keep talking about making them compostable, but nothing is happening.”
Petitions are a waste of time. I’d be inclined to ignore one sent to me out of principle. Signing your name isn’t exactly putting forward an argument, it’s just following the crowd. Virtue signalling by proxy and contempt is pretty much all it deserves.
So, Walkers, having ignored this one, they stepped up their game.
The #PacketInWalkers campaign was launched on 21 September, asking people to use “a pen, paper, and some sellotape” to send used Walkers’ crisp packets back to the Leicester-based crisp manufacturer. The campaign page says: “It won’t cost a penny as we can use Walkers’ own Freepost address. Imagine the scenes in Walkers HQ when hundreds of packets are delivered each day.”
The website urges protesters to simply attach an address label on to the empty packet, and then post a picture of themselves posting the crisp packet onto social media.
Which is getting the GPO all upset, because they are obliged to deliver it, but it messes up their sorting system. And this will be a huge problem.
So far the scale of the crisp-posting problem seems minimal, with Royal Mail saying it has only seen around 30 of the items so far.
Or not…
Could be crunch time for such direct action campaigns.Bet they thought to curry flavour with the S&VJW crowd.
…yeah I’ll get my horned helmet and go.
I remember my mother receiving a dead ,cleaned and gutted, hen just before Christmas each year. There was no wrapping and the address was on a label tied to its neck, the head not removed. Then, later in the sixties, Christmas working in local PO parcel sorting area I saw the same thing.
Nobody was bothered.
This was when butchers, fish-mongers and especially the game dealer had all their wares on open display and hanging round the shop doorway.
The sorting machines changed all that.
Recyclable? If it has no profitable value it’s not worth recycling. Until Gov’t stuck their oar in recycling was a profitable and beneficial activity – Steptoe & Son
Hmm, wonder why so many recycling depots spontaneously combust?
Makes no difference to me. I don’t buy Walkers crisps anyway. I’ve boycotted them since their advertisements use a certain G Lineker who thinks I’m a racist, xenophobic bigot who didn’t know what he was voting for.
I know where they can shove their empty packets
“30 of the items so far.”
Democracy in action. 🙂