This is Money Blog

Ocado and its plastic bag addiction

Continued from Help me tackle supermarkets on plastic bags...

Thanks for all the comments. I especially like this suggestion from Bob...

"Why can't we pay a deposit on a reusable plastic crate so that they leave one and collect the previous one?"

That sounds supremely sensible to me.

After months of abstience I tried Ocado again at the weekend. My £99 shop came with nearly 20 plastic bags and a plastic bag, in fact, for each of the two loo roll packets (which of course come in their own bag complete with built-in handle). One item per bag - how can you defend that?

I'm going to complain again to Ocado and show them your comments. I'll let you know what they say.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, thisismoney.co.uk

Web week: Most popular reports | Car tax rises

Hauliers this week organised the first major fuel protests since the blockades of 2000 when unleaded prices approached 85p a litre. Why the wait, given pump prices have topped £1 for nearly a year and now average 115p?

The website Petrolprices.com suggests support for protests quickly evaporated once motorists related blockades - now made illegal - to petrol queues.

There's no doubt motorists are upset at rising petrol costs but, judging by a surge of online reader comments this week, many recognise global oil prices as the recent villain. Yes, the Government skims more VAT (17.5%) from rising prices, but total tax makes up 58% of each litre bought compared to 76% at the last protest.

Instead, readers' venom has been targeted at plans for new car tax bands. These will apply a hefty road duty rise from next year to anything larger than a small family saloon. Support for taxes that fairly reflect a citizen's impact or footprint has grown. This tax fails that test, making no dispensation for low mileage drivers and penalising car-buying decisions made years before. 'Scrap road tax altogether and add the cost to fuel so the more you use the more you pay,' wrote reader AJB of Bucks. 'It's an obvious solution yet the obvious seems to pass by this Government.'

It might be an option, with cleverly devised concessions, for a bold government on the ascent. This one isn’t. Families should start preparing now for higher car tax.

(Images courtesy of Petrolprices.com)

Most popular reports on This is Money in the past week (new stories)...

1. Property fears grow as house prices dive
2. What is happening to Spanish property?
3. How to make yourself a millionaire
4. Banks swamped by a savings stampede
5. Midas: Bank rights issues - invest or not?
6. Government faces road tax rebellion
7. Is the seaside house price boom over?
8. Huge security alert over BT broadband
9. Sunday newspaper share tips
10. Why is diesel more expensive than petrol?
11. 2m sold worthless income insurance
12. A slow death for free bank accounts
13. The house price boom heads east
14. Newspaper and magazine share tips
15. House prices fall for eighth month in a row
16. Lenders slash house price forecast
17. Market report: Wednesday
18. Why three years is the best mortgage fix
19. Two-hour bank payments from next week
20. Confusion over U-turn on fuel taxes

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

>> How to invest in oil prices
>> Latest oil price charts
>> Four ways to ease the petrol prices pain
>> Petrol bills calculator

Al Bangura: When money doesn't mean anything

This isn’t about money. I’m sticking this warning in because it isn’t strictly This is Money territory and it's about an instance where money means nothing.

Alhassan Bangura, a 19-year-old football player for Watford - the team I support - this week lost his Asylum and Immigration case to stay in the country and faces deportation back to Sierra Leone.

Al Bangura arrived in England four years ago, to escape the civil war in his country because his life was in danger due to his late father’s connections to the Soko cult in the country. After his father’s death, its elders threatened to kill Bangura after he refused to join and take part in its rituals of withcraft and mutilation.

He fled his home and a Frenchman who found him sleeping rough in Guinea trafficked him to London via Paris in 2004, when he was aged just 16. He was then taken to a house where two men attempted to rape him. Bangura escaped and was found in the street by a passer-by who took him to the Home Office’s immigration centre in Croydon.

He underwent therapy to help him deal with his ordeals and began playing non-league football where he was spotted by a Watford scout.

Since he signed for Watford, Bangura has been a great player and fan’s favourite. Al became a father less than two weeks ago. He says he feels more English than from Sierra Leone and his ambition is to play for England.

He was originally given indefinite leave to stay in Britain. However, the Home Office has decided that Bangura shouldn’t be here anymore and wants to deport him back to Sierra Leone.

As part of its evidence at the tribunal it accused him of lying, as he told the Watford programme that he came to England with an uncle he trusted called Eric. This was rather than tell fans a man tried to traffic him for use as a sex worker and that he was almost homosexually raped – hardly the kind of thing a footballer would tell in a culture where no player dares to admit they are gay for fear of opposition taunts.

Al can appeal the decision and needs as much support as he can get to continue living in the country where he has built himself a life with a family and a job.

His problem illustrates how money isn’t the solution to everything and puts a bit of perspective on stories abour credit crunches, house prices and interest rates. This is a someone who escaped a war torn homeland as a child, built a new life in Britain and has become one of the privileged elite – a professional footballer with a six figure salary and all the trappings that entails.

Bangura has played in the Premiership and despite being only 19 has tasted wealth and a life that most others can only dream of – but that will mean nothing if he is sent back to Sierra Leone.

Next time you see an article about asylum seekers or immigration think about Al's story. In the best circumstances most people who come to Britain arrive to work and do well, and in the worst they arrive after trauma most people could never imagine.

There are hundreds of people out there like Al Bangura who could have their lives torn apart and be deported back to homelands where they are in danger of being killed. His case has gained publicity because he is a professional footballer – enjoying the fame and fortune that brings.

But this isn’t about money - this is about someone’s life.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

Sign the petition for Al Bangura here

>> US eyes Premier League football

>> Premiership pay average hits £1m

A water meter cut my bills by 35%

I felt ethically obliged to have a water meter installed just over a year ago. We had endured another dry summer, resevoirs were parched and the south-east's hosepipe ban looked permanent.

I also thought I might save a few quid... and I have.

I've had my first full-year bill. It was £220, a dramatic reduction on the approximate £330 a year I was previously paying with Sutton and East Surrey Water board.

Admittedly, it was a wet summer so my thirsty tomoatoes largely looked after themselves but it's still remarkable given it's a home with a family of three (and now four with a new addition in the past few months).

It's some anecdotal evidence to back my previous estimates that households of three people or fewer should be able to save with a water meter. If you're interested in more advice see these articles...

- Can a water meter cut costs?
- 10 ways to cut water bills (and try an official water meter calculator)

- Blog: The great water meter rush (September 2006)
- Blog: A £110 cheque for having a water meter fitted (December 2006)

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Ken Livingstone - how to not ask what people want

Sadly, it seems even self-styled men of the people like Ken Livingstone fall someway short of actually asking the public what they want nowadays.

The public consultation on the emissions related congestion charging scheme that Mayor of London Ken Livingstone wants to use to impose a £25 daily congestion charge finishes on Friday October 19th.

However, despite Ken's alleged belief in delivering people's wishes, the actual process of asking if Londoners want this to happen is abysmal.

Visitors looking at either the Mayor of London's website, or the Transport for London website would not realise that they were about to lose the opportunity to comment on one of the biggest changes to life in the capital.

Nothing on the front page of either website tells you about this, and if you eventually dig out the public consultation, it falls a long way short of managing to ask the simple question - do you want this?

How the modern world works, part 297 - public consultation

Foolishly, you might imagine that a public consultation would involve a simple 'yes/no', what do you want question. But of course not.

No, instead you get a bizarre multiple choice questionnaire asking what you have done to help the environment over the past year, and then a pair of woolly questions about whether charging people with larger engine cars £25 a day to use them would be an incentive to use a lower C02 emitting car?

And that's it. A brief quiz about your bin and a, ‘Durr, of course ripping people off for driving a bigger car is an incentive not to drive one’ answer.

TFL and the Mayor of London will then use your answers to assess their own proposals - which they have already said they want to implement.

This is sadly what public consultation means nowadays. Don’t ask the public - they might say no. Instead, introduce a procedure that makes mock elections under tinpot regimes look a model of democracy.

It's unfortunate this, as hidden deep in Ken's plan is a germ of an idea. We do need to reduce emissions and as someone who cycles through London everyday I can see the benefit better air would bring.
But this plan will simply be one of the final steps in making Central London a rich man's playground.

The £25 per day charge - with no residents discount - for cars with engines over 3 litres, or that are in the highest emissions bracket, will hammer families who own people carriers, estate cars, or larger saloons and small businessmen.
Meanwhile, £6,000ish a year will only be a minor inconvenience to the Bentley brigade, that is slowly chasing the last ordinary families out of Central London.

Diversity is essential to a city's make-up, but those last remaining inhabitants of central London not on six figure salaries are being squeezed from their homes. If you're a wealthy Londoner paying the charge or buying a new less polluting car is no problem, for others - who often do only around 2,000 miles per year - this is deeply unfair.

There is also no exemption for classic cars, which are again rarely driven and also due to their extended lifespan much greener than buying a brand new Prius

It's a shame really. What we needed was a proper debate about how to deal with this, or even a genuine chance to answer yes or no. But as with the problems with bendy buses, Oyster cards, 'green' taxi filters that make them pollute more, and many other issues, it doesn't seem that the people get a say.

Don't worry you might think, I don't drive in London/live anywhere near it. But when something like this can be forced through without meaningful consultation in London, any other council anywhere can easily do the same.

And it's only a matter of time before they do.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

How to get elected London Mayor - 30 minutes free parking

Congestion charge expands - money saving for the rich

Cut taxes for the super-rich and give us all a break

How to get elected London Mayor - 30 minutes free parking

Becoming London’s mayor has come a long way since Dick Whittington heard the Bow Bells singing his name and turned around.

Whittington, as the story goes, was walking away from London - where he had arrived as a pauper with his trusty cat - when he heard the bells calling to him as he climbed Highgate Hill and made an abrupt about turn.

Of course, Whittington was not mayor in the same sense that Ken Livingstone currently is and Boris Johnson wants to be, he was Lord Mayor of London, a separate post that still remains as a figurehead role.

But I’m sure that Ken or Boris would dearly love to go down in history in the same way as Dick has - even if instead of a cat Ken would have a newt and Boris his bike.

So, here’s my suggestion of a sure-fire vote winner for whichever of the sabre-rattling duo want to make London their own:

30 minutes free parking.

It’s a simple plan – easy to implement, bound to be popular with a lot of ordinary Londoners and could blaze a trail for common sense throughout Britain.

Cars can be parked in any space, be it residents’ bay, public car park, or metered area for 30 minutes for free. After that parking wardens can give them a ticket.

Residents will still be able to find spaces to park, as people will not be able to park beyond half-an-hour, small businesses will benefit from shoppers enjoying the same privileges they get at the supermarket, and people can regain the right to nip into a shop and buy something without getting a £60 fine.

The only people who will be affected are parking wardens, who will now have to go back to the way things used to work before the current insanity took over. In those days, wardens tended to write down people’s number plates and give them a bit of leeway before slapping on a ticket.
The 30-minute rule will not apply to single or double yellows and any council seeking to extend a yellow line area will have to justify it and then put it to a local vote.

I can’t see a single reason why everyone can’t have the right to park for half an hour and it would be the biggest boost we could give to local shops. Any environmental concerns about increased car use would be offset by less people driving to out-of-town supermarkets with their free parking.

Parking restrictions are meant to be for the benefit of local residents and businesses – at the moment they penalise them - so how about it Boris or Ken?

After all nowadays if Dick Whittington was travelling up Highgate Hill, he’d probably get a parking ticket while he was pulled up, mulling over whether to turn back or not.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

PS. There’s a second part to this vote winner that could be implicated at a later date - make traffic wardens pick up litter while they are walking round too.

More:

Cost of parking rockets

Tycoon says £80,000 car in pound is good value compared to London parking

Councils banned from setting ticket targets

Something fishy about that chicken?

Have you ever opened a pack of supermarket chicken breasts only to be assaulted by a smell from somewhere between High Heaven and the drains at the colostomy clinic?

I have.

Three days ago to be precise.

Which, if you look at the label from the pack, pictured, was three days before its use-by date (today).

Apparently this is not uncommon. You are, I'm told, supposed to freeze chicken on the day of purchase and not leave it in the fridge for two days as I did.

But if this is correct, why doesn't it say so on the label?

This isn't the first time that I've sent chicken to landfill because it's gone off before it says it should and it got me thinking. What exactly does it say on the label?

Well, with a little help from Google, I attempted to find out.

1. Asda.
Big supermarket, Britain's cheapest. Started in Yorkshire now owned by American giant Wal-Mart. Named after founding Asquith family and the word Dairy, according to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not always reliable. Wal-Mart's industrial relations record is often debated.

2. Fresh British Chicken
Blimey. There's a whole other world out there. A world of chicken marketing. 'Sporting legend Sally Gunnell, who still holds the 400m hurdles world record, is a big fan of British chicken.' Nice one Sal. Your chicken clearly doesn't whiff of sewage.

3. British chicken breast fillets
Although I'm reluctant to search for 'breasts' from my work computer (I like my job) it turns out the phrase returns Waitrose in the top slot. Waitrose chicken breasts cost £5.99.

4. £4.00
This pack of three big chicken breast seems very cheap to me. At the local butcher this would set me back three times more than that. Turns out you're allowed to inject chicken with water and beef so long as the ingredients list it. There are no ingredients listed and no mention of any beef. So we're OK. But how come it's so cheap?

5. UK 4633 EC
4633 is the name of 20cm pothole in York, a ray of sunshine watch, and the starting salary for a teaching assistant in Tameside. What it's got to do with meat is not immediately obvious.

6. L317107:09
317107 relates 'to the DPE deficit and unallocated resources of £9,707 from other Highways Revenue Budgets' in Cumbria. It's also the Barnes & Noble sales rank of The most critically acclaimed of all of Dr. Frank H. Netter's works, Musculoskeletal System: Developmental Disorders, Tumors, Rheumatic Diseases, and Joint Replacement. What this number is or has to do with dead poultry is not clear.

7. 5.88
This is the heading of a chapter in a document on the definition of dangerous weapons in Dublin and outdoor vending rules in Sacramento. It's also the price of an audio Sherlock Holmes book. Here, it is of course the price per kilo of my chicken breasts. £5.88/kg. This compares to waitrose, which sells at £11.98/kg. More than twice the price. Organic chicken breasts are more than £18 a kilo. How does Asda do it?

8. 680g
This is the weight of a jar of vegetarian tortoise food, a type of coaxial car speaker and the subject of a not-very-popular discussion in foreign on airbot.net. It is also the weight of my chicken breasts. That's heavy chicken, man. At Waitrose, the average weight of FOUR chicken breasts is 530g. At Asda you get THREE for 680g. Wow.

9. Use by HDY
HDY is the stock exchange code for Hyperdynamics Corporation, an offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation company in Guinea and Louisiana. It's the official code for Hat Yai airport in Thailand. But I'm guessing in this context it's probably a shortform for Hadaway, a bit of Geordie slang for 'get away'.  I can find no other explanation.

10. Fresh Class A
Class A is 'ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, amphetamines (if prepared for injection)'.

11. Packaged in a protective atmosphere
This means the air's been sucked out to prolong the shelf-life. There's some serious science going on here. Protective atmosphere means the packet's full of nitrogen. There's a website called Chicken Yoghurt.

12. 'Produced in the UK', and the red tractor logo
'The red tractor logo guarantees that the food you are buying has been produced to high standards from the farm right through to the supermarket shelf to ensure you are buying quality fresh food.' So that's OK.

Must be my fridge that's dodgy. 

Richard Browning This is Money

More...

Asda / Tesco telephone prank
Asda under fire over cheap roses
Asda guilty of anti-union bribes
Is Wal-Mart getting it wrong?
Asda showdown with unions
Asda milk ads banned from kids TV
Caring consumer

And finally...

A calculator to see when fruit is available in the UK

Whole Foods Market is here... and M&S is scared

The opening of Whole Foods Market has been keenly anticipated by us here at This is Money. The store is just below our building and we've been wondering what on earth they've been doing that meant it would take a year to refit. So when it opened on Wednesday several of us went down to the store in our lunch hour to check it out. We were very excited by the free cheese samples, gobsmacked by the enormous wine selection and terrified by the fact that a pork pie costs £6. 

But most interesting was the reaction by M&S, which is just on the next block. Suddenly there were green t-shirt'd employees frolicking up and down Kensington High Street offering free fruit salads (which we also sampled) and scratch cards and attempting to usher people into the store. The tills are fully staffed and there are signs up lauding M&S's green credentials. It's amazing how a bit of competition spurs business into action.

I've never been a big fan of M&S food stores. While it's true that these days I occasionally visit two of them - near home and near work - traditionally I've shunned them for being ridiculously overpriced and for their excessive packaging. Pieces of fruit are invidividually wrapped and vegetables packaged in their own special containers of three or four. It seems crazy for a store so keen to market its green credentials. As it happens, I also object to queuing for ten minutes to buy a sandwich, although this has improved in the past months.

It will be interesting to see what other changes M&S implement now that Whole Foods Market has finally arrived. But at least the queues might be a bit shorter.

- Sascha Hutchinson, This is Money

Useful links

• Organic store is problem for supermarkets
• US food store to cause stir on UK High St
• TIPS AND ADVICE: Be a caring consumer

Plastic bags: Help me tackle the supermarkets

I'm a big fan of Ocado, which delivers Waitrose shopping to your door.

It's free for orders over £75 and if you shop, and then don't order for a few weeks, they will send you discount vouchers or codes entitling you to £10 or £15 off or 10% or 15% off.

This is exactly the sort of big business marketing ploy that shrewd consumers should take advantage of.

However, I have a gripe - every delivery seems to come with an annoying number of carrier bags (that come within reusable plastic boxes).

I complained to Ocado and this was the swift response (see below). You can help encourage Ocado to improve their polluting ways by also emailing your disapproval to them.

Dear Mr Oxlade,

Thank you for your email.

I am sorry to hear that we have used so many carrier bags in your order. We are keen to limit Ocado' impact on the environment as much as possible. Recently we have redesigned the container that the carrier bags sit into, dividing them into three sections so the bags sit upright and can be packed more easily in our warehouse. This in turn should also reduce the number of bags used in each container to a minimum.

I have also forwarded your comments to the warehouse manager. They are able to bring this to the attention of the supervisors in the warehouse so that we can monitor the amount of bags being used.

Our existing Ocado bags use approximately twenty-five percent less raw materials than the previous bags and are easier to store for future customer re-use.

There are currently no plans to remove carrier bags from the delivery process completely.

If we can be of any further help, or you have any further comments or suggestions, then please contact us by e-mailing ocado@ocado.com, or by calling us on 0845 3991122 or 0845 6561234 (8am-11pm Mon to Sat, 12-8pm Sun), seven days a week.

Yours sincerely.

Nathan xxxxxx
Ocado Customer Service Team

If you want your consumer power to improve the world, keep an eye on the advice and news in our Caring Consumer section.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Congestion charge expands - money saving for the rich

One side has been wailing and gnashing its teeth and the other is accusing anyone who dares disagree with them of being grossly irresponsible.

No, it’s not the nation’s footballers buffing up their reputations over the weekend, but two very vocal opposing sides of the argument about the extension of London’s Congestion Charge today.

(Readers outside the reach of the capital, please don’t click away now – this does concern you, I’ll explain how later.)

One faction that has been relatively quiet on the Congestion Charge front recently though are the wealthy residents of Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill, who now live within the zone.

In fact, ask a lot of these residents of London’s richest areas and you find that despite their initial distaste, the extended zone will actually do them a favour.

If you live in the zone you get a 90% discount on the £8 congestion charge. Buy a month’s worth of the charge and it’ll cost you just £16. That means the wealthy citizens of Chelsea, Kensington and Notting Hill can now drive around central London, at any time of any day of the week, for a bargain price.

Previously, despite the fact it made little difference to their deep pockets, most avoided driving into Central London, as they objected to paying £8 for the privilege. Now, many I have spoken to say there will now be no point not taking the car. Going to the hedge fund office in Mayfair - might as well drive; Bond Street for lunch and shopping – I’ll take the car; Meeting in the City – traffic might not be too bad at this time of day.

The people who it will really hurt though are small businesses. West London is one of the few places in the country still full of small shops and traders, as the rich residents’ cash helps support them. But these small traders – who don’t get the same discount as residents - find the Congestion Charge hits their delivery vans and their staff who have to drive for business reasons. And the pain is worse as big chain rivals can easier absorb similar issues.

This problem was raised when the original charge was introduced and nothing has really been done to help. And that's why the rest of the country should be concerned, because, despite any denials you hear, similar congestion charges are being plotted for the rest of Britain's cities.

Congestion will drop substantially at first as a result of the charge – it did in the original zone – but then it will rise again – in the original zone it is now estimated to be 8% lower than before. (As stated by the eco-friendly Guardian)

Unclogging our painfully congested streets is an admirable ambition, but freeing them up for the rich and hurting our already struggling small businesses doesn’t seem right.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Useful links:

Money saving for the not so rich (rich folk not excluded)

Investing tips to help you get rich