It’s the August Bank Holiday weekend so chances are many readers will be getting in a ‘big shop’ in the coming days. Maybe you’re planning a barbecue or having a nice summer salad. Either way, I’m setting our readers a challenge.

As you unpack your shopping this weekend, don’t throw out the plastic wrapping as you go. Instead pick a spot in the kitchen and start stacking up all the packaging that you’re getting rid of. That means removing the carrots from their bag and placing them straight into the fridge drawer, taking those strawberries out of their container and storing them in a lunchbox and putting those potatoes into their designated drawer. Not only will this help with food waste – your fruit and vegetables will stay fresher for longer when they aren’t sweating in plastic. By stacking up your packaging, it is an eye-opener about how much of it actually arrives into our homes each week. I did it myself recently, and got quite the fright.

Research released earlier this week from VOICE – an Irish environmental charity showed that here in Ireland, we generate more plastic packaging waste per person than any other EU country. It works out as 67kg of plastic packaging that we each discard annually, way ahead of Iceland – in second place at 50kg per person.

We all have a part to play in being more environmentally conscious – only 32% of Ireland’s plastic packaging is recycled, far below the EU’s 50% target – but some of it is also outside our control. Cast your mind back even a decade or so, and if you were in the supermarket, you most likely scooped up a few loose apples into your basket or threw a head of cauliflower straight into the trolley.

Research released earlier this week from VOICE – an Irish environmental charity showed that here in Ireland, we generate more plastic packaging waste per person than any other EU country

Now, so much of our fruit and vegetables is contained in plastic with little or no choice to buy loose. Milk is no longer in glass bottles; the butcher doesn’t put your rashers into brown paper and what is it with bananas in plastic bags? It’s natural yellow skin is hardy enough.

Consumers are annoyed, with 92% of survey participants expressing frustration at the volume of waste entering their homes.

VOICE’s Lifting the Lid report is calling on the Government to introduce legally binding targets to reduce the quantity of packaging items placed on the market, with a focus on supermarkets. There are also calls for pilot grants for retailers to install bulk/refill infrastructure and a mandate of 20% of the floor surface of shops over 400 sq ft to be fitted with refill systems by 2030.

This will require us as consumers to change our shopping habits. Last year, I saw these refill dispensers in action when I was wandering around a supermarket in America. In the same way that we arrive to the shops with our reusable shopping bags, American consumers have their containers in tow. They were scooping up rice into glass containers, weighing out their pasta into reusable tubs and pouring peanut butter into previously used jars.

There are a few shops in Ireland that have taken this approach, and they should be supported. However, most of them are in urban areas. To bring about real change, we need to see this refill infrastructure becoming an option for everyone, and see them rolled out in rural towns and villages.

Bring everyone on board and real change will occur.