Plastic pollution: it's not just bags at the checkout, what about the plastic clogging supermarket aisles?

Last week I received a marketing email from a major supermarket offering me bonus loyalty points if I purchased a product from its new range for kids' lunchboxes: apple slices and carrot sticks, pre-cut and packaged in plastic.

Plastic-wrapped fruits and vegetables are regularly sold in supermarkets.

I did a double take. What sort of environmental vandal came up with that idea?

Since when has chopping an apple become so inconvenient that it needs to be done for us, and packaged in plastic?

Our oceans and coastlines are drowning in plastic litter. Research carried out in 2013 found that the density of plastic in Australian waters is up to 40,000 pieces per square kilometre.

In northern Australia, discarded fishing nets known as "ghost nets" entangle thousands of turtles each year. In April, nearly 30 kilograms of rubbish was found in the gut of a dead sperm whale that washed up on a Spanish beach.

Read the comment by Nicola Heath from ABC News - “Plastic pollution: it's not just bags at the checkout, what about the plastic clogging supermarket aisles?”