UK supermarket chain Morrisons has announced its plan to make all of its own brand packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, in a bid to tackle plastic pollution.
Image: Morrisons headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. Photo: courtesy of michael ely/Wikipedia.
As part of this effort, the company intends to allow its customers to use their own containers for meat and fish from the Morrisons’ Market Street Butcher and Fishmonger counters, starting from May 2018.
The company also plans to work through all of its own brand products to identify, reduce and remove any unnecessary plastic packaging as well as trial the removal of plastic packaging from its fruit and vegetable selection in a number of stores.
Additionally, Morrisons, which has already banned the sale of 5p single-use bags, seeks to replace the black plastic trays used for fresh meat and fish, with recyclable packaging materials and will be phased out by 2019.
The company has already banned plastic straws from its stores and has switched to cotton buds with paper stems instead of plastic ones.
It aims to make 100% of the plastic by weight in its packaging recyclable by collaborating with other retailers, suppliers, local authorities and the charity WRAP.
Morrisons CEO David Potts said: “Reducing the damage caused by plastic is one of the most challenging issues society can address.
“Because we make most of the fresh food we sell, we’re in an important position to make changes to our packaging. Joining WRAP’s Plastic PACT also offers a special opportunity to work collaboratively to take this opportunity.”
The supermarket chain has joined WRAP’s UK Plastics PACT, an initiative which is aimed at reducing plastic use and prevents plastics pollution.
Morrisons has reduced the weight of packaging used across its Market Street counters by 50% since 2010.