Morrisons is taking a step in the right direction to help combat plastic pollution by becoming the first British supermarket to roll out plastic-free fruit and veg areas in its stores.
Shoppers will be able to pick up 127 varieties of fruit and veg - all plastic-free - with the option to either buy them loose or use recyclable paper bags. Sir David Attenborough would approve.
The company estimates it will save three tonnes of plastic a week, or 156 tonnes each year.
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It comes after a successful 10-month trial in stores in the UK towns of Skipton, Guiseley and St Ives, where customers bought 40 percent more loose fruit and veg, seemingly happy enough to ditch the unnecessary plastic packaging.
The new 'buy bagless' shelves will be part of a completely plastic-free area within the fruit and veg department and will include all the usual suspects such as apples, carrots, oranges, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and cauliflower. There will also be 'unusual seasonal varieties' such as celeriac and persimmons.
Drew Kirk, fruit and veg director at Morrisons, said: "Many of our customers would like the option of buying their fruit and veg loose. So we're creating an area of our greengrocery with no plastic where they can pick as much or as little as they like. We're going back to using traditional greengrocery and we hope customers appreciate the choice."
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Sixty stores will get the plastic-free areas this year, with more introduced later as part of Morrisons' ongoing store refurbishment programming, meaning that a whole load more plastic will be saved.
Alongside this, the supermarket has previously pledged to ensure all own-brand plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
In December last year, Morrisons introduced 1kg boxes of fruit and veg for just £1.
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In an attempt to tackle food waste and encourage healthy eating, the 'Too Good To Waste' boxes contain a wide range of different fruits and vegetables near their end of the shelf-life.
All the items are 'condition checked' by staff to ensure they're safe to eat.
"We've listened to our customers who said they don't want to see good food going to waste," Drew said at the time.
"So we've created these boxes and every day we'll fill them with a wide selection of produce at risk of being thrown away.
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"Because produce may be unusual and varied, customers can also try some new and exciting dishes at home without having to spend a fortune."
Featured Image Credit: MorrisonsTopics: Food, UK News, trash isles