WHSmith's greenwash...

WHSmith's meanest, tiniest polybag weighs 1.37 grams... (click to enlarge)I’ve been having fun with a set of digital scales designed for measuring tiny amounts, down to 0.01 grams. You can get them from Chinese gadget websites such as www.goodluckbuy.com  or www.ahappydeal.com for just a few pounds and they’re pretty impressive for the money.

Firstly, I couldn’t believe WHSmith charged me 1p. for a tiny (the smallest) thinnest rubbishy polythene bag for a small book costing £10.99, in a move that’s just pure lunatic greenwash.

So I set to work with my digital scales. They can measure to 0.01 grammes, so.... Smith’s tiny tot carrier bag weighed 1.37 grams, meaning that Smiths is penalising us to the tune of £7.30 per kilo or £7,300 per tonne.  I wondered if I got my money back when I recycled it. B&Q was as bad, charging (10p. I think) for a rubbishy recycled black polybag that had zero carrying capability and was only good for throwing away.

While in Smith's I noticed too how they want £66 (yikes, that's $100) for a set of HP 56 & 57 black & colour cartridges to fit my inkjet printer, when you can buy a whole new All-In-One for that. Is that intended to stop us buying inkjet cartridges? I bet they’re just flying off the shelves. Nor did they have the Yorkshire Post newspaper. Do we need a WHSmiths any more?

The next question I tackled was, approximately how many Hundreds & Thousands cake decorations are there in a standard 100 gram tub?

I tipped some 100s and 1000s onto the scales until they registered, and I got a weight of 0.16 grams. Turns out there were 143 of them. So 100 grams = 143 / 0.16 x 100 = 89,375 on average. I make that 1.1 milligrams each. A metric tonne would contain 893 million of them, which is a lot of cup cakes.