Plastic wrapping is the fruit of all evil

AFTER accompanying me for a 45-minute cruise around the supermarket aisles last weekend, my husband has very oddly decided that he doesn’t want to repeat the process ever again. “Life’s too short” apparently.

I mentioned that his certainly will be if he starves to death owing to a shopping boycott, but it didn’t weaken his resolve. Shopping with me is “like being with Victor Meldrew... EVERYTHING annoys you”.

No, not everything as it happens, but I am admittedly furious about the amount of plastic sitting in the supermarket aisles.

“EVERYTHING is wrapped in bloody plastic,” I muttered as I sashayed around fulminating about the world’s oceans – as well as nearly every fridge, cabinet and shelf – being stuffed full of plastic. Comfortingly, I’m not alone in my annoyance.

A massive nine out of 10 people, according to a survey for Plastic Planet, want supermarkets to introduce a plastic-free aisle, and four out of five were worried about the amount of plastic packaging being thrown away.

What is the obsession with plastic? Food doesn’t like it – fruit, especially soft fruit such as raspberries and strawberries, just sweats and dies in its grasp.

Vegetables don’t like it – even hardy, gnarly potatoes perspire and rot in its suffocating throttle.

Salad? A lovely bunch of youthful salad leaves, reduced to a bag of sludge in no time at all.

My fridge HATES it too, condensing and producing too much moisture and

Berries sweat and vegetables suffocate in its grasp

sodden shelves in protest. All the domestic nuisance, however, pales into insignificance beside the mass damage and destruction waged by plastic in the environment.

More than SIX BILLION TONNES of the toxic stuff is lying in the world’s oceans, littering the countryside or sitting in landfill.

It is killing creatures on land and at sea. Last year, The United Nations warned that microplastic in foodstuffs may also pose a risk to human health.

We are lazily relying on plastic far too much. Supermarkets are among the biggest offenders.

Meanwhile, I have taken to buying boxes of recyclable brown paper sandwich bags to transfer all my fruit and veg into.

I also recycle the occasional cardboard tray – used by more responsible retailers – when I can get my hands on one, and bung veggies in those. It works. They remain crisp and dry, last longer and look happier.

It’s important to have a happy vegetable. Just ask my husband.