The move will help Sainsbury’s to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic in its own operations
Sainsbury’s has expanded flexible plastic packaging recycling system to 520 stores. (Credit: Sainsbury’s)
Sainsbury’s has introduced a new flexible plastic packaging recycling system in 520 supermarkets following a successful trial in the North East of England.
The new recycling system will enable customers to recycle all flexible plastic packaging, which is not accepted for kerbside collection by local authorities.
Customers can now drop packaging such as crisp packets, food pouches, salad bags and biscuit and cake wrappers at the front of store recycling points.
According to Sainsbury’s, around 83% of UK local authorities currently do not accept these packaging products for recycling.
The expanded initiative will enable to reduce the amount of plastic waste pollution and a report from WRAP revealed that flexible film resulted in 290,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2019.
Sainsbury’s stated that the new recycling system is the retailer’s latest move to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic in its own operations.
The latest initiative follows the retailer’s announcement in May that it has joined the Flexible Plastic Fund initiative, which works to properly recycle flexible plastics.
Sainsbury’s product and innovation director Claire Hughes said: “We’re really excited to announce the mass rollout of the Flexible Plastics Recycling scheme in over 520 of our stores, helping our customers to recycle more of their plastic packaging, instead of it ending up as waste.
“Making recycling easier for our customers is a key part of our strategy to minimise the impact of single-use plastics on the environment, alongside our own ambitious target of reducing the use of plastics in our own operations by 50% by 2025.”
Sainsbury’s has also pledged to halve its use of plastic packaging by 2025, as well as removed single-use plastic bags from loose produce.
It has also announced a 70% reduction of plastic in its Taste the Difference and SO Organic lamb and steak packaging.
In addition, Sainsbury’s eliminated more than 297 tonnes of waste plastic in collaboration with Prevented Ocean Plastic to repurpose plastic collected from the coast into packaging for its strawberry and fresh fish ranges.