Are you a regular meal deal picker-upper? There have been articles about the number of excess calories and sugar in some of them and which supermarket offers the best value lunch deals.

But how many articles have been written about the incredible amount of single-use plastic involved? It has been estimated that the average British consumer will spend £10,000 on lunchtime deals over their working life!

Let's take the average meal deal – a sandwich/wrap, drink, packet of crisps and let's not forget that hit of sugar in the form of a choc bar!

That is a minimum of four pieces of single-use plastic per meal deal: break it down even further to the plastic bottle with its screw top, inner seal and plastic label, the sandwich wrapper with its plastic window and a probable coating of thin plastic on the cardboard (to keep it fresh?).

Or what about that sushi portion with its black plastic bottom which the recycling machines can't spot, a pasty, pot of fruit, a serving of nuts or perhaps a salad bowl, the latter three which include the thin plastic film lid?

One might argue that all these items are carefully taken home to be recycled kerbside or popped into the buyer's stash of specialist recycling schemes in the garage but realistically this is not the case.

More likely, the items are all binned and in many cases these items can be seen littering the grass verges, having been carelessly tossed out of car windows.

Many people are busy juggling work and family commitments, etc. but have we become too used to the convenience of it all? There is very likely to be bread in the cupboard, squash or juice in the fridge, water on tap (with fewer microplastics in it than in bottled water), a home-made sweet treat in the cupboard, maybe leftover food to use up, etc. from which we can put together a lunch within less than 10 minutes.

If a fizzy drink is a preferred drink with lunch, could investing in a Sodastream or Drinkmate be the answer? This would also save some of the 90,000 or so tonnes of fizzy drinks bottles produced every year.

Could we perhaps spend 10 minutes less on the internet, on social media (who doesn't like a bit of social media and eBay scrolling!) to do this?

Of course, many folks do scrupulously put together a homemade packed lunch each day, but if not, perhaps it's something to think about? You might save some money too, you never know!

Kay Pike

Plastic Free Axminster