Words by Smiley Team
If you didn’t think it was possible to recycle crisp packets or cling film then think again. From early March, Tesco started rolling out recycling points for the soft plastic items that don’t usually get recycled by local councils.
Initially creating recycling points in 171 stores across South West England and Wales, the supermarket plans to then expand the initiative across the country.
Tesco’s Director of Quality, Sarah Bradbury, said: “It is an absolute priority to remove and reduce as much plastic as possible and ensure everything we use is recycled and kept out of the environment.
“Where plastic serves an important purpose such as reducing food waste, these new recycling points make sure that every piece can be easily recycled. Trials have shown they are popular with customers, so we believe rolling them out at scale will have a real impact.”
This will be the UK’s first recycling network for soft plastics of this size, supplementing the work done by councils, which mostly avoid this kind of plastic.
Regardless of where they bought them, customers will be able to deposit material such as cling film and pet food pouches. The waste plastic will be washed, sorted and transformed into new packaging for food, beauty and household products.
The initiative comes after a 10-store trial in which customers exceeded expectations, returning more than 10 times the predicted amount of plastic. The waste plastic already collected has been used to manufacture food-grade packaging for a variety of Tesco cheeses.
Tesco’s efforts at tackling plastic pollution gained approval from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Their sustainable materials specialist, Paula Chin explained: “Plastic pollution is one of the most visible symptoms of the environmental crisis and is devastating our natural world.
“Businesses, governments and households have all got an important part to play in tackling the issue, so it’s encouraging to see Tesco extending their successful soft plastics collection trial across more of their stores, giving their customers even more opportunity to recycle these valuable materials.”
Already, Tesco has made significant progress in reducing its plastic waste, hitting its target in 2020 of removing a billion pieces of plastic and reducing the size of its plastic packaging by 3,500 tonnes a year.
By partnering with eco-packaging innovator Loop, they are reimagining and producing packaging that customers can keep and reuse in various ways.
If you work for a company interested in adapting your products to the fragile climate we’re currently living through, join Loop by expressing your interest to [email protected]. For more information visit loopstore.co.uk/partner-with-us.
