packaging and squandering resources
It is very odd that many organic, ethical products (fairtrade coffee, organic milk/juices) come packaged in substances contributing to serious environmental pollution.
Even Sainsburys (UK) which is "Organic Supermarket of the Year" continues to sell veg and fruit in unrecycleable boxes/trays and its organic juices, milk etc. have all moved into Tetrapac, which has the potential for bright attractive printing.
Consumer pressure is steering even the large supermarket chains into offering cleaner less polluted food. Initially this cost "over the odds" but as the movement has grown prices of organic fruit/veg/milk/juices have come down.
Probably the same consumer pressure will work in terms of non-recyclable packaging, esp. Tetrapac?
There are alternatives. The Co-Op here has a milk-delivery service. You get your milk in old-fashioned glass milk-bottles which you wash and leave out for collection (memories of summer mornings in Dublin, the horse-and-milkwaggon clip-clopping past at 5.00am and rattle of metal crates). There was interest by the Co-Op in offering this system for a broader range of foods (e.g. organic free-range eggs, juices, breads etc.) On many parts of continental Europe glass bottles are accepted for reuse (e.g. Grolsch in Holland). Companies like The Body Shop and Holland and Barratt (the healthfood chain) have responded to consumer pressure by providing in-store bins for cartons which will be reused.
It's a matter of raising awareness and generating enough support including taking time to fill in "Comments and Suggestions" cards in supermarkets and letting them know what you think of their policies and your ideas of less packaging or re-usable packaging rather than recycleable stuff.
Regarding the debate here on the small/nil impact recycling has on environmental wellbeing, the statistics are clear that recycling produces cleaner CONSCIENCE not cleaner ENVIRONMENT so it's a bit of a swizz unless people keep thinking it through! There are huge energy costs in collection, sorting and processing waste, the latter itself producing pollutants.