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Take a look at the rubbish that you throw away each week. Is most of it packaging?

From moulded polystyrene to the ubiquitous plastic bag, an average household can make considerable but avoidable contributions to landfill.

In Devon, we throw away over 300,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. Imagine a football pitch piled high with 1,200 feet of rubbish - that's the amount of waste we dump every year in Devon.

Nationally, Government figures show that a staggering 30 million tonnes of household waste are produced each year. Much of that waste is from unnecessary packaging materials.

The Women's Institute took the initiative with a campaign aimed at excessive packaging.

On the WI's Packaging Day, members were invited to return to the supermarket any packaging they felt was excessive and unnecessary.

Shrink wrapped cucumbers

Fruit and vegetables in particular were targeted: for example shrink-wrapped cucumbers and coconuts, bananas sealed in plastic bags, apples, pears and courgettes placed on trays and then shrink-wrapped.

The WI pointed out that much of the packaging was not only unnecessary, but also that the majority of the materials couldn't be recycled, nor were they bio-degradable.

To compound the folly of over-packaging, plastic bags are often used to transfer purchases from the store to the home.

An ordinary plastic bag takes 500 years to decay - just think how many plastic bags you have thrown away.

A Waste and Resources Innovation Programme (WRAP) has set aside 拢8 million to find newer and better ways to package.

However, we as consumers can reduce the amount we throw away by being more aware of what we are buying and looking out for greener alternatives.

It's simple - green packaging causes less damage to the environment:

• Reusable packaging, such as glass bottles, can be cleaned and re-used over and over again.
• Recyclable packaging is made of material that can be used again for some other purpose. Recyclable materials include glass, metal, card and paper.
• Biodegradable packaging will easily break down and disappear into the soil or the atmosphere without causing damage.

Packaging that can be recycled carries standard symbols which tell people what the product is made from and how it can be recycled.

The key symbols are outlined in the table below:

Symbols indicating recyclable packaging

In March 2007, the Carbon Trust launched a new carbon reduction label to help consumers make an informed decision of a product's carbon footprint across its life cycle.

A carbon reduction label

The Carbon Trust takes into account processes that cause emissions, including crop-spraying, transport, the production process through packaging, storage and distribution and the disposal or recycling of packaging. It then awards a product an individual score.

In a separate move, the EU has recently issued a directive to reduce the amount of landfill that stems from purchases of computers, fridges, televisions and other electrical products.

It's now the responsibility of the manufacturer and supplier to limit the amount of packaging, and, where possible to dispose of materials involved in getting the product to the consumer.