Three members of Plastic Free Ferndown (PFF) along with volunteer Nick Pulford were inundated with unwanted plastic as shoppers left the tills. When unwrapping items, customers voiced their concerns about the quantity of unnecessary plastic in supermarkets in general.

Sainsbury’s Ferndown fully cooperated with, and offered all their support, to the national mass unwrap organised by Surfers Against Sewage, and implemented locally by PFF on Sunday 10 March. Forest FM came along to record an interview.

The overwhelming consensus was that it is time for change, and all the customers PFF spoke to agreed wholeheartedly with the cause.

Tim Sansom said, “There is too much plastic on food and we should consider how many years it will take to get rid of it.”

As Ben Cannon unwrapped his broccoli and handed the wrapper to Nick, he said, “This is a good cause.”

Ian Sellar couldn’t get the plastic off his celeriac quick enough, “totally unnecessary,” he said. And Amy Shaw didn’t want to go home and have the job of removing all the unwanted single use plastic bags and wrappers on her shopping to put straight into her own bin.

A conservative estimate of the amount of unnecessary single use plastic that went out of Sainsbury’s that Sunday (10am-4pm) was more than 5,000 items. This takes into consideration that only about one in every 15/20 customers actually had the time to stop to remove their wrappers during the mass unwrap.

PFF community leader, Janine Pulford, said, “Like everyone, I enjoy the convenience of shopping in supermarkets, but the quantity of plastic is off the scale and this event proved it. Customers really don’t want to take all this unnecessary packaging home with them.

“They don’t want their vegetables and fruit trussed up in plastic bags. Supermarkets should be selling loose items and either supplying paper bags, or compostable alternatives where necessary. It will be much better for the environment. I think people are getting lazy and putting convenience before the planet. We should be thinking about our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“It is the future generations who are going to have to cope with our waste in the next thousand years, because that’s how long it can take for plastic bags to decompose. Our grotesque plastic footprints already lead into every corner of the Earth. We need to do something now.”

Janine thanked Sainsbury’s Ferndown for their support in permitting the event to be carried out inside the store.

Surfers Against Sewage organised the National Mass Unwrap, which took place throughout the country between 3 and 10 March 2019.