The flowerpot men of Europe

By Hermione Gray

��PhotoDisc.co.uk

IF YOU thought a flower pot was just something to keep a plant in, you would be wrong. According to the European Union�flower pots must be considered as 'packaging'.

�

Does it matter Yes, if you run a gardening business and have to pay to have your 'packaging' collected and recycled.

�

The European directive requiring bigger companies to pay for a proportion of the waste to be collected and recycled was introduced in March 1997. Since then, civil servants have spent much time and energy debating what could actually be called 'packaging' - could a tea bag be packaging Or an envelope Or a coat hanger

�

All this confusion finally led to a test case on the issue when last week Hillier Nurseries in Romsey became�the first official victim.

�

Mr Justice Newman explained: 'In my judgement, by placing plants and shrubs in pots for sale, the pots, being '"packaging" are conceived so as to constitute a sales unit and at the time of sale, constitute a sales unit. They, therefore, constitute packaging within the regulations. It follows that the respondent acted as a "producer" and should have been found guilty on each of the informations.'

�

Sir Teddy Taylor, Scottish Conservative MP and secretary of the influential Europe Reform Group, said: 'This makes the European Commissioners look like Flowerpot Men. They should be dumped in a compost heap.'

�

However, Daniel Wiley, solicitor for the Environment Agency, is pleased, saying: 'If this decision leads to increasing the volume of plastic that comes under these regulations we are very pleased. It means that less waste material will be disposed of in landfill sites and more will have to be recovered and recycled.'

�

Another seemingly unnecessary change was instigated by Safeway recently. Gingerbread men are to be known as 'gingerbread persons' in the supermarket chain. This has caused a great stir in Grantham, Leicester, where gingerbread men were created by local baker, George Egglestone in 1740.

�

Safeway denies that the change is due to political correctness, saying that they are now making gingerbread women, children and animals, and the change of name is to save labelling space on the shelves.