NAKED CUCUMBERS SAVE EQUIVALENT OF 30,000 PLASTIC BOTTLES A YEAR

One of the greatest struggles in the quest to reduce your plastic footprint is avoiding the swathes of flimsy film used to preserve supermarket fruit and vegetables.

Home delivery company Riverford promises the 50,000 boxes of fruit and veg it delivers across the country each week contain 82 per cent less plastic than equivalent products from major UK supermarkets.

‘We found we could do away with plastic bags by training our staff to identify the different types of pumpkin, for instance (to do away with the need for labels) and by getting our farmers to keep more leaves on their cauliflower to protect it,’ says Robyn Copley-Wilkins, Riverford’s packaging technologist. ‘By leaving popular items such as cucumbers naked we have saved an equivalent of 30,000 plastic bottles per year.’

Delicate fruit and veg that cannot be delivered loose are gathered in pulped paper punnets (like egg boxes), with citrus fruit and onions in netting made from wood pulp.

This has saved an estimated 182km of plastic netting in two years, although the punnets and netting are 50 per cent more expensive than plastic, says Robyn.