I do so agree with Joleah Lamb (‘It’s like gangrene’: disease soars as plastic fouls reef, 26 January) about the need for people to take direct action against plastic. I would love to do so and so would thousands like me, but the question is how when manufacturers and supermarkets are calling the shots? I will buy only loose fruit and vegetables to avoid packaging, but all supermarkets and some market stalls offer only plastic bags to wrap them. A very simple and immediate change that could be made, long before the introduction of biodegradable packaging becomes available, would for all sellers of loose fruit and vegetables to supply only paper bags from now. I for one will be buying my greengrocery at the first supermarket and market stall that does that, and I expect many feel the same way.

Maggie Sutton

Wells, Somerset

• It is infuriating to find my local Waitrose wrapping more and more vegetables in plastic. Since the supermarket teamed up with Prince Charles’s Duchy brand, it has been almost impossible to buy less than six of most fruit, and every green vegetable is plastic-wrapped. Duchy is meant to be organic and interested in saving the planet; a pity Harry didn’t question Pa about that, but then of course, they don’t shop! I have emailed both Waitrose and Duchy, to no avail. Good for Iceland taking the lead: I now only buy fresh veg and fruit at my local greengrocer, who uses time-honoured brown paper bags.

Kate Lammin

Twickenham

• I spent a week trying not to buy anything plastic, or wrapped in plastic. As well as finding the experience curiously exhilarating and potentially life-changing, I can report: a 100% failure to produce a supper I liked; a 75% reduction in waste; a 50% reduction in household expenditure; an almost 100% success rate over the week. My nemesis? It turned up on the penultimate day in the form of my favourite newspaper, which I consumed with familiar pleasure, until I spotted the plastic-wrapped supplements. Tut, tut, Saturday Guardian.

Melanie Wood

East Molesey, Surrey

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