A SOLITARY banana sits sweltering in a polystyrene tray, wrapped in layers of cling film.

Never mind its robust, convenient and biodegradable container provided by nature, it is encased in a layer of artificial packaging, apparently for our convenience.

Then, of course, there was the now famous sight of a shrink-wrapped coconut.

How much energy does it take to produce the plastic wrappers, carrier bags and plastic trays that end up in our bins?

But, bit by bit, our supermarkets have reduced the amount of unnecessary packaging.

And at home, I’m fairly good.

Partly because it’s greener, partly because it’s cheaper, I buy big packets, avoiding things that are unnecessarily divided up by further layers.

I take my own linen bags to the shops, or reuse carrier bags as little bin liners.

I refuse to buy overly wrapped fruit and veg and I recycle what little packaging does make its way through the door with semi-religious zeal.

But, when I get to work, it all goes out of the window.

The morning begins with a hot drink, bought in a paper cup with a plastic top, toast in greaseproof paper and a paper bag, with a napkin thrown in whether I want it or not. I spread on it individual plastic pots of jam and pats of butter wrapped in foil.

Mid-morning, and there’s another coffee, with biscuits in a plastic wrapper.

Lunch is a sandwich in a cardboard carton or soup in a cardboard cup, eaten with a plastic spoon, roll spread with plastic knife, yet another individual pat of butter, neatly wrapped. Then an individual packet of crisps in a foil packet, water in a plastic bottle.

Come mid-afternoon, I’m drowning in a sea of litter – a sea of my own making.

It’s not unusual for me to have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the office, so day by day, I’m making a mountain of discarded packaging that I then need to find something to do with.

It’s not as if I don’t recycle. I do, pretty faithfully.

But not everything is easily recyclable, and really that isn’t the point. Even recycling uses energy.

The answer, for me at least, is to use less stuff in the first place.

HOW much of this must there must be – per day, per week, per year, per person?

I’m tired of walking down the high street dodging swirling plastic bags and takeaway wrappers. But while I’m buying food and drink packaged to within an inch of its life, I’m part of the problem.

There is the perception, on the part of visitors, that Liverpool’s streets are covered in rubbish.

“They were having a festival of litter when I arrived,” Bill Bryson famously observed.

Recycling rates are growing, too, and in order to meet up-coming European waste directives, based on weight, consumers need to be encouraged to throw away even less.

The onus is on all of us to cut the amount of rubbish we make – whether that’s at home or in the workplace.

Multiply my mountain of coffee cups, a crisp packet or two, by more than 60m Britons, every day of every year. The idea made me shudder.

So I decided to keep all the rubbish I generated during the day this week, and work out what I can do to reduce my own personal litter mountain.