Commercial's 16th Change Champions team have been taking part in a single-use plastic challenge. For two weeks they saved all their plastic waste, to highlight how much is generated at an individual level. Then they spent two weeks trying to live without single-use plastic. How did they get on?

Jude's story, part 2:

As I outlined previously, I’m a big supporter of buying food and supplies locally, mostly from my local farmers market and farm shops. So you’d think managing without plastic for two weeks would be relatively straightforward.

In fact, I found it is almost impossible to go plastic-free if you have to buy anything from a shop or supermarket.

There are some items which are marketed as an environmentally friendly option. But at the end of the day, they are still sold in a plastic container which is disposed of once the contents have been used up. This is especially true of detergents, such as laundry liquid and washing up liquid, even when purchased from my local health store. Plant pots and labels from my local garden centre also compromised my goal to live without plastic.

So, much to my frustration and disappointment, I didn’t manage to live without single-use plastic. It makes me sad that even for environmentally-conscious people who are aware of the impact of plastic on the planet, our lives are so dependent on it.

Plastic alternatives can sometimes be found. But it’s not easy and it’s certainly not cheap. Making the change to plastic-free is the harder and more expensive option so convincing everyone to try to make the change is going to be really hard. And that makes me sad too as I’m not sure our rivers, seas, landscape and wildlife can wait that long.

So come on you supermarkets, food producers, cafés and takeaways - if farmers and local producers can do it, why can’t you?