Which supermarkets use the most and least plastic?
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Find out how your favourite supermarket fares when it comes to problematic plastic packaging.
By Angela Terry
Plastic has never been as unpopular as it is right now. For decades it was lauded as a miracle material – cheap, versatile, convenient – and the world gobbled it up tonnes and tonnes at a time. Now, though, we have a problem.
The plastic we use today will exist on the earth long after we’re gone. Indeed, the plastic we used as children will still be floating around somewhere on the planet. Many types of plastic are difficult – if not impossible – to recycle, so the material is doomed to clog up landfill, spoil natural environments and, as devastatingly depicted on the BBC’s Blue Planet series earlier this year, irrevocably damage wildlife and ecosystems.
Then, of course, there’s all the energy and natural resources used to create the material in the first place – and it’s a lot. Making enough plastic water bottles for the United States, for example, requires 17 million barre...
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