"Tim S" wrote in message
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My daughter is being taught to recycle at school, which, at here age, I
aplaude. But I tried a little though experiment on her (she's 4). I showed
her a package from Tescos. It was a little cardboard box of pills encased
in a plastic "clam shell". I cut off the clam shell and asked her what she
thought about it. Reply: "Recycle it Daddy". I said "good", "but how about
if it wasn't made in the first place?" "Carboard comes from trees and you
can grow new trees, but plastic is made from oil which is a precious
resource which cannot readily be regenerated".

The technology for using algae to convert human and animal waste to oil has
been around for decades. However, at present, it is a lot easier and cheaper
to extract the stuff from the ground, so the process has not been refined
into a commercially viable operation.

"Why did they put a nice
little cardboard box that worked perfectly well in a silly plastic shell
whose sole purpose is to cut my fingers before I chuck it in the bin?"

The shells are optional extras on many goods and are classed as anti-tamper
devices. They stop people damaging goods by opening them and also stop
people stealing the contents, but leaving the empty box on the shelf.

Colin Bignell