ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners staged a "mass unwrap" at Kidderminster Tesco to show how much unnecessary plastic is used to wrap up our fruit and vegetables.

Plastic Free Kidderminster organised the event on Sunday (February 23) in partnership with the supermarket branch, and campaigners said the response from shoppers to the initiative was “very encouraging”.

A team of volunteers were on hand from 10.30am to help customers leaving the superstore to unpack all their unnecessary plastic. Shoppers were asked to bring their own bags and give back any surplus wrappings.

Around 130 items of unnecessary plastic packaging were collected over two hours, with some customers bringing their own containers to empty produce into.

Kidderminster Shuttle:

Information was also collected on customers “plastic pet hates” as part of the nationwide Citizen Science experiment.

Sunday’s event was part of a nationwide event by marine conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage, in its call for action to tackle wasteful and avoidable single-use plastic.

The charity is calling on supermarkets to reduce and redesign packaging and take full responsibility for their business practices.

Cllr Vicky Caulfield, who led the event, said: “It was very encouraging to see how many shoppers were concerned about plastic waste and wanted to see the end of single use plastic, because of the harm it causes to the environment.

“We are hopeful that Tesco and other supermarkets will take notice of the desires of their customers and take action to reduce plastic packaging.”

Tesco community champion, Amanda Connor, said: “The event has helped make customers and staff more aware of recycling facilities available at the store, particularly plastic bags.

"Customers and colleagues don’t like packaging that feels unnecessary. They want to reduce their waste, just as we do.

"Over the last year, we’ve reduced the amount of unrecyclable plastic on our shelves, tested a number of innovative solutions, and became the first UK retailer to publish a breakdown of its packaging data.

"We are working towards a closed loop system for packaging where we use as little plastic as possible - where packaging is used, re-used, collected and recycled continuously, so no packaging goes to landfill.”

Search 'Plastic Free Kidderminster' on Facebook for more information