Yes, polystyrene is a terrible waste, and breaking up big chunks just leaves millions of crumbs.
Fortunately a lot of companies are now at least using shaped cardboard inserts to hold stuff in place, which is slight improvement, although the boxes are generally still bigger than they need be. And Amazon use long strips of paper bunched up as wadding, although they have their own levels of irritation for me - you start to pull one end out of the box and it just keeps coming and coming for hours, usually dragging other stuff out with it onto the floor....
Of course, not buying so much stuff to start with is one solution. We have houses on our rounds where they seem to have several big new boxed toys or consumer goods every week, on top of all the packaging from ready meals and other over-packaged food. M and S sell satsumas in a cardboard box for god's sake - why? And all those probiotic yoghurt drinks which come in tiny little 'dose' bottles. Why not one bottle, and then drink a measured amount each day? Ah, but that wouldn't seem scientific enough I bet, to convince the vapid they are making themselves better. (Not to mention that the whole concept is actually pointless. Gut bacteria taken in that way are destroyed by stomach acid, apparently.)
Bloody hell, it's my day off, I woke up irrevocably at 7 and I'm talking about bloody recycling!
