Honestly, we do try. Our weekly vegetable shop is a seasonal organic veg. box from Riverford, which arrives in a re-useable cardboard box and nowt else. We supplement this with a trip to the market, taking our own packaging. Household and bathroom products such as washing up liquid and shampoo come from the refill station at our local GreenHouse. But still plastic packaging enters the house – every time we visit the supermarket actually. The cheese that’s packed in plastic: the odd box of blueberries: the package of pitta bread … and so on and so on.

This week The Big Plastic Count invited us to join in and count all our plastic waste for one week only. So we did. It was tricky, because the family from Spain was here, and spending our time with our three year old granddaughter and her two month old baby sister was the priority. But we bunged everything in a sack, and with the family now gone, made our inventory this morning.

And it was shocking. The smoked mackerel we can’t buy loose; the toothbrush pack (I haven’t embraced the bamboo toothbrush); the pizza bases bought for an easy supper that three year old Anaïs could help create … and so on. Here’s what we learnt.

Like almost everyone who took part, I imagine, we do try to think about what we buy, and avoid packaging where we can. Yet our plastic footprint is huge – larger this week no doubt because of our visitors. What about those who because too busy or lacking motivation have an even larger footprint? Shops – especially supermarkets – and manufacturers don’t make it easy for us. Who, for instance, needs to have their bananas packaged in plastic? Why can’t supermarkets sell us the number of apples we actually want, rather than supplying them packaged in units of six or so?

We take any plastic bags we do acquire to a supermarket recycling point, but that’s a faff too. It’s usually full to bursting point.

And here’s what happens to it.

But even that’s better than this horribly common sight, a tiny proportion of the result of an urban litter pick. …

The Big Plastic Count is being conducted among individuals like us, and in some schools as a project, as a means of raising awareness among children. And the results are being fed to the Government. Individuals and groups, however well meaning. really can’t effect much-needed change alone. And we have an election in the offing. I can’t imagine lobbying by The Big Plastic Count will make an impact on a dying-throes government chaotically falling apart. Another year of inaction. Another year wasted.