Would you change your shopping habits to cut plastic use?
In supermarkets throughout the UK, we’re used to seeing our fruit and veg individually wrapped in layers of plastic. Often, supermarkets will provide fruit and veg in both packaged and loose form, so why not just ditch the plastic altogether?
Across the world, only 14% of the plastic we use is recycled and over eight million tonnes of this plastic ends up in the world’s oceans. The vast majority of this plastic waste is the (often unnecessary) plastic packaging of food items.
Shelled hard boiled eggs and pre-sliced orange wedges encased in plastic were just a few items The Lincolnite found in store at a popular local supermarket in Lincoln.
The question of whether the UK government should force supermarkets to offer an option of no or eco-friendly packaging for all fruit and veg items is being debated in Parliament on Monday, November 12 in response to an online e-petition signed by more than120,000.
We asked shoppers in the city centre what they thought about the use of plastic packaging and whether supermarkets should be doing more to help reduce plastic waste.
One shopper Diane Shelton said she feels that more should be done by supermarkets to reduce plastic waste, adding that we used to be able to buy our fruit and veg loose from green grocers.
Another shopper Carol Nutting said: “It’s getting away from all the convenience we’re used to, it’s definitely something we all need to work together on.”
Supermarkets like Morrisons and Lidl say they are doing more to combat the amount of single-use plastic in stores such as providing brown paper bags for fruit and veg, and encouraging shoppers to bring their own Tupperware for their goods.
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