With Tesco vowing to remove one billion pieces of plastic from its products by 2021, having previously encouraged customers to recycle plastic bottles by trialling in-store reverse vending machines that pay out for every bottle returned, Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, is replacing small plastic bags for loose fruit, vegetables and bakery items with a reusable drawstring bag that costs 30p, made from recycled plastic, while giving customers the option to use their own containers.
At the same time, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons have all pledged to stop using black plastic in their products by the end of 2019. The hard-to-recycle material often ends up in landfill or is incinerated because it contains a pigment that cannot be detected by most recycling machines.
And Iceland – which has promised to remove all black plastic packaging from own-label products by 2020 – is replacing the plastic packaging on 18 festive products in the run-up to Christmas 2019 with recyclable paper.
Meanwhile, Aldi has committed to ensuring that all packaging on its own-brand products will be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022. It has already removed 5p carrier bags from stores (replaced with bags for life and other reusable bags made from recycled plastic store waste). The chain is also assessing the feasibility of a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles via, for example, reverse vending machines.
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With Tesco vowing to remove one billion pieces of plastic from its products by 2021, having previously encouraged customers to recycle plastic bottles by trialling in-store reverse vending machines that pay out for every bottle returned, Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, is replacing small plastic bags for loose fruit, vegetables and bakery items with a reusable drawstring bag that costs 30p, made from recycled plastic, while giving customers the option to use their own containers.
At the same time, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda and Morrisons have all pledged to stop using black plastic in their products by the end of 2019. The hard-to-recycle material often ends up in landfill or is incinerated because it contains a pigment that cannot be detected by most recycling machines.
And Iceland – which has promised to remove all black plastic packaging from own-label products by 2020 – is replacing the plastic packaging on 18 festive products in the run-up to Christmas 2019 with recyclable paper.
Meanwhile, Aldi has committed to ensuring that all packaging on its own-brand products will be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022. It has already removed 5p carrier bags from stores (replaced with bags for life and other reusable bags made from recycled plastic store waste). The chain is also assessing the feasibility of a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles via, for example, reverse vending machines.