The girl wants Quavers

You can so tell I'm on the mend.

I'm sat on the sofa with a glass of wine indulging in a chick-flick on Film 4 and I am desperate for a pack of Walkers Quavers, the curly cheese snacks which I have loved since I was a child. For those who are unfamiliar, they're the ones that come in the bright yellow packet, which were once owned by Smiths Crisps.

Nolstagia eh. It's a wonderful thing!

I still remember the walk to Alda's sweet shop on the corner of my mum's street in South Wales. I would part with my pocket money and being unable to wait until I got home, I would pop open the packet and let each curly quaver melt in my mouth.

With thoughts of my childhood, the melt-in-the-mouth experience, the fact that I'm enjoying a glass of wine, I've now got Quavers completely on my mind.

You could go as far as saying I've got a craving worthy of a pregnant woman.

But I can't indulge. They're off limits you see, because in support of Mr & Mrs Green's Zero Waste Week, I pledged to give them up for a week.

And so far I've been doing well.

Some might say that I've had a helping hand because for most of this week I've been struck down with tonsillitis, the worst kind of sore throat ever. It's as if your throat is made of shards of glass. You lose your appetite, your glands swell up and your head feels like it's in a different universe. So as you can imagine, the thought of indulging in any form of crunchy crispy snacks offered as much appeal as swallowing gravel.

Now you might be wondering why I chose to give up this innocent little snack as a pledge for the Zero Waste Week.

Well, you see, they're not as innocent as they may appear. Nutritional content aside, the problem that I have is like most crisps and similar snacks, Quavers are packaged in a film coated with aluminium, which is currently not recycled and doesn't degrade easily in landfill and I have a sneaking suspicion that any empty packets that I leave behind will still be in one piece when I'm dead and buried.

It's not all bad news though. PepsiCo, the company that owns Walkers, have announced in their recent sustainability report that they plan for Walkers packaging to be renewable, recyclable or biodegradable within 10 years.

What was that......TEN YEARS?!

Blinky Blimey! Not only have I had to cope with feeling ill and missing out on my Quavers for a week, but it looks like I might have to wait until I'm 50 before I can indulge guilt-free in my favourite snack again.

The question is...will I stay off the Quavers after Mr & Mrs Green's Zero Waste Week?

Who knows eh? I guess only time will tell.

While we are waiting for time to spill the beans of truth, you may like to indulge in a few flights of fancy, with some lovely stories about recycling crisp packets, which go beyond shrivelling them up in the oven to create disfigured miniatures.

My favourites are:

The Recycled Crisp handbags from arts & crafts company Via Cornwall.



They look gorgeous and I now feel the urge to splurge on this and many of the other recycled gifts.

Then there's the story about the band ReCoup who distributed their CDs last year by reusing crisp packets, as part of their environmental message.

Here is the video that accompanies their song "Remind You", focusing on the damaging effects that humanity's carbon footprint has on the planet's natural resources.





It's the perfect reminder of why attempting a zero waste lifestyle is so important and a fitting end to the Green's inaugural Zero Waste Week, which comes to a close this Sunday. You could say it's enough to keep me off my favourite snack for a while longer.
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