Like so many countries, but particularly those that are a part of the European Experiment, we are already overrun with rules, regulations, red-tape and petty legislation. We are, in fact, drowning in them. So normally I would be the last one to want to propose any more but in re-visiting one of my own personal rants, I’m going to all the same. Packaging.

In particular the type of blister pack illustrated. First up the volume of this sort of unnecessary packaging that we discard each and every day is enormous and it all has to be dumped somewhere. As waste it is an environmental catastrophe – as manufacture it is an unnecessary use of resources. We personally fill two wheelie bins of this sort of stuff every two weeks. Next up you need a complete toolkit and non-arthritic fingers to get the bloody things open. Be prepared for small cuts and abrasions, a loss of temper and rising blood pressure. There can’t be many people who have not cursed at this sort of blister pack.

We, as the end consumer, can do little to reverse this trend – but the retailers can and while I wouldn’t choose to make life more difficult for shop-workers it might be the only way to effect change. So I would like the right, via legislation if necessary but preferably voluntarily, to request that the seller of the product remove the item from it’s packaging at the time of purchase and to dispose of the materials. if I want to buy a pair of headphones, I just want the headphones and the cable – I don’t want the excessive sheets of plastic and card that came with it. If the onus was on the retailer to prise items out of their cocoon it wouldn’t be long before they pressured the manufacturers to eradicate this nonsense once and for all.

After that one, it will be time to tackle non-peel-able labels.