Will public backlash get shops to cut out plastic?

LET’S hope yesterday’s ‘shop and drop’ day at supermarkets was a wake-up call to the retail giants, forcing them to tackle the scourge of excessive plastic packaging.

Despite assurances about going greener, there has been little improvement in my local supermarket. It provides no bins for disposal of the mountains of plastic the fruit comes wrapped in, for the plastic tubs containing preprepared salads or the flimsy plastic bags for bread.

Even if I armed myself with biodegradable containers, hessian sacks and paper bags like a dutiful eco-warrior, there is not an inch of free space to repackage my goods.

Until the supermarkets change their ways, the advice for environmentally conscious consumers is to rely on oldfashioned fruit and vegetable shops, corner stores and independent butchers where the produce is loose and uncovered.

But as much as we are drowning in plastic, we are also time and cash poor, so turning our backs on supermarkets is just pie in the sky.

Plastic gets a bad rap for many reasons although it reliably extends the shelf life of food, cuts down on waste and maintains hygiene standards. Nor do alternatives like cardboard and paper come without a cost to the planet. Think of the trees.

We can reduce our reliance on plastics by insisting that the supermarkets don’t pass on nonbiodegradable or non-recyclable packaging to the consumer. Yesterday’s demonstration of people power is a start.