Major food firms pledge to cut plastic packaging

SOME of Ireland’s biggest food producers have announced plans to significantly reduce plastic packaging.

The Plastics Action Alliance, which includes Keelings and Aurivo, aims to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastics by 2020, and make all of their plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

They also pledged to send no packaging waste from participant sites to landfill by the end of 2020.

‘It is important to demonstrate that we have a real and binding commitment to the reduction of the use of plastic,’ the alliance’s Chairman, Aidan Cotter said.

‘Some of the objectives we have set are ambitious – but we are confident that they will be met,’ he added.

The alliance’s other key objectives include ensuring that 30% of all plastic packaging on average will be recycled by the end of 2025, and to only use cardboard packaging that is certified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by the end of 2020.

Other brands represented by the Plastics Action Alliance include: ABP beef; Manor Farm poultry; Irish Country Meats; Rosderra pork; Monaghan Mushrooms; Country Crest/Ballymaguire Foods vegetables and prepared meals; Nature’s Best salads; C&D Foods pet food and Bandon Co-Op dairy.

An Environmental Protection Agency report in December said plastic had replaced food and garden waste as the largest contributor to household general waste, and that plastic’s share in business waste had almost doubled in the last ten years.