Wednesday 24 December 2008

Was a little amazed yesterday to see that we in UK are being advised to wrap our Christmas presents in cloth rather than wrapping paper. It seems a lot of gift wrapping paper can't be recycled and if people stick in the paper recycling bins the whole lot counts as being contaminated and off it goes to landfill. Well I think it probably is helpful to know that — it's certainly not made clear at the recycling receptacles in our local Tesco. I assumed the press got hold of this story from some guy in a government ministry with not much else to do. But no!! The message comes from an agency (quango) set up by the government. It's called "Waste and Resources Action Programme" — acronym "WRAP". Last year it cost the taxpayer around £80 million. Think about it. UK is almost on its knees, a total breakdown (well it's getting that way) of law and order, and the hard-pressed taxpayer is expected to trump up £80 million to pay a bunch of quangocrats to tell us how to wrap our prezzies. These are the sort of people the country can do without.