'Tis the season

for Quality Street,




Miniature Heroes ,

Roses,



etc, etc.

Tins of calorific indulgence cover "the desk at the end" from December 1st until mid January (people take in their unwanted chocs after xmas hoping others will eat them so they don't have to break their post Christmas diets.)

But take a moment to reflect on the packaging. Take a minute to read the recycling instructions on a box of Quality Street - as follows...

"Once you've enjoyed the sweets separate the coloured outer wrapper and recycle the foil as you would a drinks can.

You can put the coloured outer wrappers on your compost where they'll decompose. This is a much greener way of getting rid of them and it'll help your plants grow strong.

Remove the window from the empty carton and put the window bit in the bin The card can then be quickly and easdily recycled... By doing these thingsa you'll be doing your bit to help look after the planet, so why not treat yourself..."

This took the whole idea of of sneaking a quick bite of chocolate into a"whole"nother sphere - the team trying desperately to separate foil from cellophane, ripping windows from the cardboard and wondering whether the office can recycling bin men would respond favourably to lots of bits of Quality Street wrappers mixed into the "Cans only" bin. Such fun! (Hey - times are desperate in the Civil Service - we have to scavenge laughs where we can)

Why, I wonder, is there a cellophane window in the middle of the outer packaging? Given anyone over the age of 3 knows what QS look like I'm not sure there needs to be a hole over which they need to stick, (with glue), the cellophane, so that we can see the multi layered wrappers within. So in this age of austerity and in a bid to live a greener life if you must send me chocolate please do it in the form of



which succeed on both counts - non fattening centres and non wasteful wrappers! A box will do nicely but I can think of a variety of useful things to do with a bucket if you must send one!

Love Wend