Leading article: Join up... the campaign against waste starts today

Ask someone what they have done to help the environment lately and they will almost certainly cite "recycling more". Recycling in the home is certainly to be encouraged. But in one sense the act itself is an admission of failure. Being forced to recycle often means we have already acquired more material than we need. We are dealing with the consequences of that over-consumption in the most ethical way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place. That is why The Independent is today launching a "Campaign Against Waste", to get to the roots of the problem: excess packaging.

Packaging volume increased by 12 per cent between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of the typical household's waste. The supermarkets are the worst offenders. Items such as sausages, cereals, pizzas are often packaged twice with plastic and cardboard. Visit a food branch of Marks & Spencer and you will find a pack of four pears covered in a thick plastic covering, each nestling on a moulded styrofoam base. We have chosen to illustrate our front page today with a shrink-wrapped swede - a vegetable that comes equipped by nature with its own protective casing - to illustrate the sheer lunacy of the phenomenon.

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Such excess would be almost amusing were it not for the tremendous damage it is doing to the environment. The UK is fast running out of landfill sites in which to bury such unnecessary waste. If such packaging is incinerated, it releases greenhouse gasses. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. Disposal is not the point. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Nor is the scandal of waste limited to packaging. Food waste is a significant problem too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need.

There have been some small tremors of acknowledgement among supermarkets that this cannot continue. Sainsbury's has committed to making more of its packaging compostable. Marks & Spencer has promised to improve its act. Tesco is offering customer incentives to re-use their plastic bags and using more "retail-ready" packaging for soft drinks and flowers on its shop floors. But we need such commitments from the entire supermarket sector. And we must have them from other retailers such as toy and electronics vendors too.

But in truth this is not just about retailers. It is about each of us. We have learnt to associate packaging with quality. Attractive packaging has become an important "signifier of value". We have been trained to regard something unpackaged as somehow rejected or substandard. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products from iPods to trainers, which are often sold with far more packaging that necessary.

Some packaging is inevitable. But the phenomenon has become a vicious circle. Retailers are packaging products ever more elaborately to make them look ever more desirable. We have a responsibility to break the chain, to send a message that more packaging no longer means "better".

There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material we are accumulating. This is prompting us to confront the wastefulness of our consumer culture. But we have a mountain to climb. That is where you, our readers, can play a part. We are asking you to e-mail or send us examples of ludicrous or unnecessary packaging that you discover. Let us form a movement. Those retailers parading their newly discovered green credential must be held accountable. The rest must be shamed into action. Excess packaging must no longer be tolerated. The battle against waste starts here.