We’ve bought some new pillows, and they’re made from recycled bottles…
If we want recycling facilities we also have to ‘close the loop’ and buy recycled products. So like the duvets we bought last winter, we looked for pillows made from recycled material. It wasn’t that easy. I looked online first, and didn’t come up with anything much. But I knew Marks and Spencers had their ‘Plan A (because there is no Plan B)’, and sure enough, there it was in the small print of their pillow page.
But I still wanted to check what the pillows actually felt like, so I rang my Mum who lives near a store and sent her on a pillow-pinching mission. When she got to the shop she asked “a group of young staff” where she could find pillows with recycled filling and they looked at her blankly.
One offered to ‘ring head office’ and did so, reporting back that “it was a one off bulk buy and we don’t have them any more”. Hmmm. Plan A because there is no Plan B?? Surely not?
And indeed when I next was near a store and went in, there were the pillows and they feel fine. At the cashier’s desk I made a point of saying why I’d bought them. More blank looks. So good marks to M&S for corporate responsibility, but a bit more staff awareness is required!