Fed up with green beans on black plastic trays? Tired of cucumbers in tight-fitting plastic jackets? Have you had enough of bananas in bags? Then, according to a government minister, you should remove the offending packaging - and dump it at the checkout.

Shoppers were urged yesterday to take direct action to force supermarkets to cut the excessive and wasteful packaging that goes direct from the shop shelf to the household bin. The environment minister Ben Bradshaw advised food shoppers to leave excessive wrapping at the tills and to report the stores to trading standards in an attempt to cut the amount of unnecessary plastic sent to landfill sites.

So is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Firstly, I think it is appalling the amount of packaging that comes with some food. I realise that supermarkets may think it is tidier than loose veg in bins but it is hardly environmentally sound.

When I lived in Germany the whole issue of waste and recycling became a big political issue both nationally and locally. They were already a long way ahead of us on recycling but most people felt it was not enough and specifically objected to the amount of packaging with some goods. The government introduced a recycling system which required retailers to provide bins for different sorts of packaging and to pay for the recycling. This created a real incentive for retailers to cut back on unnecessary packaging.

However, in Britain we try the kid gloves approach! So often on an important issue the Government is unwilling to take large commercial players to task. All too often there is lipservice given to green issues or consumer protection but all is left to the free market - in other words unless it benefits the bottom line it will be ignored. Thus Ben Bradshaw simply asks consumers to drop their rubbish at the checkout. If he had bothered to require the retailers to install bins first that would have been fine but the Government has adopted the laziest approach possible.