Morrisons has become the first supermarket to ban plastic packaging from all bananas sold in its stores.
The supermarket giant announced a pledge to replace plastic bags with paper bands on some of its bananas - which is the second most bought item in stores.
This means 45 million single-use plastic bags and 180 tonnes of plastic will be removed from stores a year and will be rolled out in six months.
The ban is part of Morrisons' drive to reduce plastic and revert back to traditional grocery packaging methods.
It follows the supermarket giant's successful 12 week trial that removed over two-million pre-packed plastic bags to date.
It has recently launched a glass milk bottle trial in which bottles of milk are delivered directly to its supermarkets by local dairy farms.
Once returned by customers, the bottles are collected, sanitised and can be reused for ten years or more.
Morrisons was also the first supermarket to reintroduce paper string bags for fruit and veg, sturdier paper bags at checkouts, and refill customer containers at its Market Street counters, to avoid single use plastic packaging.
Elio Biondo, Morrisons banana buyer from, said: “Bananas have their own packaging - their skins. They also grow in bunches which generally means they don’t need bagging together.
"So a simple sturdy paper band is the ideal alternative. In trials the quality of the bananas has remained the same, so this switch out of plastic is a no-brainer.”
The supermarket chain has committed to a 50 per cent reduction across its own brand primary plastic packaging by 2025.
Initiatives introduced over the last 12 months will remove 8,000 tonnes of unnecessary or problematic plastic each year.
Some 83 per cent of Morrisons own-brand plastic packaging is now able to be recycled.
In 2019, Morrisons was voted the most environmentally responsible company in the UK for its work on plastics reduction at the Responsible Business Awards, run by HRH The Prince of Wales’ Business in the Community Network.
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