Saturday saw customers at the Tesco store in Minehead being encouraged to hand back single-use plastic packaging at the tills as part of a national “Mass Unwrap” campaign to highlight how much is unnecessarily wrapped in plastic.

Organised by Plastic Free Minehead as part of the Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Communities campaign, the aim was to show the high levels of plastic packaging being used and put pressure on supermarkets to help make changes.

It is one of a number of actions the Plastic Free Minehead volunteer group is taking as its works through the five SAS objectives to reduce the impact of single-use plastic in the area.

These include working with local businesses, community groups and schools, and achieving the nationally ecognised “Plastic Free Community” status for Minehead.

Daniel Fitzgerald, Plastic Free Minehead community leader, said: “There are currently over 670 communities across the UK, including Minehead, all working together to free where we live from avoidable single-use plastic, from the beach, all the way back to the brands and the businesses who create it.

“It’s not about removing all plastic from our lives. It’s about kicking our addiction to avoidable single-use plastic and changing the system that produces it.”

Full story and more pictures in tomorrow’s Free Press.