Nearly a third of plastic packaging used in supermarkets is either difficult to recycle or not recyclable at all, according to Which?.

The consumer group said that of 27 own-brand items at 10 big supermarkets, Lidl was the worst offender, with the lowest proportion of easily recyclable packaging, as reported by the BBC.

However, Lidl said the survey did not represent the shop's full product range.

Which? found 71 per cent of packaging at Lidl was easily recyclable, compared to 75 per cent at Sainsbury's and 81 per cent at Morrisons.

A Morrisons chocolate cake came with a widely recyclable box, while a similar product at Lidl was made up of a non-recyclable film, in a widely recyclable box with a non-recyclable window.

Some products, such as easy peel oranges, were packaged in non-recyclable material, regardless of the supermarket they came from.

A spokesperson for Lidl said the "small sample" used in the report was not representative of the shop's product range. The company said it was currently conducting a review into its packaging footprint and was confident that the vast majority of its packaging was widely recyclable.

Which?'s investigation also found huge inconsistencies in how recyclable packaging was labelled. While some items were not labelled at all, others were marked as non-recyclable when they could be taken to supermarket recycling banks.

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