Tesco is to encourage customers to discard unwanted and excessive packaging near the tills, in an experiment along the lines of a similar "take-back" scheme in Germany. The supermarket chain has already cut back on what it regards as "wasteful" packaging, such as bulky dog food bags and unnecessary plastic wrapping on food. A regional trial will now try to find out which kinds of packaging consumers are prepared to do without.

Common customer gripes include the amount of plastic, cardboard and foil used with Easter eggs, the superfluous boxes accompanying toothpaste, and the trays and plastic film that "protect" fruit.

The trial runs initially for six weeks from today, at Tesco stores in Guildford, Surrey, and Ilminster, Somerset. The company stressed that the arrangements were temporary to get consumer feedback. The scheme allows customers to leave excess packaging for recycling.

Alasdair James, Tesco's head of energy, waste and recycling, recently visited Germany. He said: "We know our customers expect us to help them recycle easily and we have also committed ourselves to cutting our own waste. This unique pilot helps us do both. Packaging left by customers at the store will tell us a lot about areas we may need to look at again, as well as where we have got it right."

Tesco has more than 3,500 recycling and reducing packaging projects.

It stressed that for regulatory reasons or where labelling was essential - for instance in warning of products containing nuts - packaging might still be necessary.

A large proportion of retail packaging ends up in landfill space where it takes a long time to decompose, and even then the waste can give off harmful gases and toxins which pollute the air and water.

Tesco said it was now diverting 87% of its waste from its store network away from landfill, compared with its target of 95% by the end of the year.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco executive director for corporate and legal affairs, said: "Tesco is committed to tackling environmental and climate change and we are always working hard to play a positive role and make it easier for our customers to do the same. We know that our customers want us to continue to reduce packaging.

"At the same time we need to make sure that we are preventing unnecessary food waste. We are looking to find the least amount of packaging necessary and this trial will help us to establish customers' views." A recent report by the Local Government Association said that Waitrose had the most packaging and Tesco the least, while Sainsbury's had the highest proportion that could be easily recycled, and Lidl the lowest.