Calls for more in-store ref ill stations to halt plastic waste
Majority of items in our recycling bins are from supermarkets
THE Government has been urged to compel supermarkets to install refill dispensers for everyday items such as pasta, nuts and detergent.
It comes as a new survey found two thirds of items in our recycling bins originate from the supermarket.
The research was carried out by the environmental group Sick of Plastic – a joint initiative by Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment (Voice) and Friends of the Earth Ireland.
It is calling for a legally binding target that 20% of the floor surface of shops larger than 400 square metres should be fitted with refill systems by the end of the decade.
‘Food waste comes to about €700 a year’
Similar targets have been set in other European countries, with some initiatives already in operation – most notably in France and the Netherlands.
Voice chief executive Tad Kirakowski told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The vision for this would be that when you go to your supermarket or retailer, a lot of the normal items you would buy on a regular basis will either be available loose – your fruit and veg for example – or there’ll be refill stations in place for things like your pulses, your nuts, your rice.’
This is managed in various ways in other countries – and in over 20 pioneering food stores around Ireland – whether by weighing the empty container first, or by the dispenser having a set volume it dispenses ‘like an optic in a bar’.
Sick of Plastic also advocates for ‘take back schemes’ similar to a number recently trialled in the UK and France.
‘You would get your branded ice cream in a metal tub and there’s a deposit paid on that – you bring that back and get the deposit back or you get your ice cream again in that same kind of tub,’ Mr Kirakowski explained.
Aside from the primary aim of reducing packaging, he said such initiatives reduce food waste as well.
‘You might only need two onions, but now you’ve got six, and we’ve seen [from Environmental Protection Agency research] that food waste comes to a value of about €700 a year to an Irish household.’
Ireland remains by far the number one producer of plastic packaging waste per capita in the EU, at a rate of 62 kilograms per person per year.
Hungary and Norway are next, producing 47kg and 46kg per person respectively.
Sick of Plastic’s National Recycling Bin Survey asked participants to count items in their recycling bins.
The analysis found over two thirds of waste items in the average recycling bin in Ireland originated from the supermarket while 40% of waste items were plastic from the supermarket.
Some smaller independent food outlets are leading the way in providing refill facilities for a range of staple foods.
Jenny Stokes, who runs The Zero
Waste Shop in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, said her store offers refills of organic whole foods – ‘things like pasta and rice, cereals and nuts, seeds and spices’ – along with ‘things that you can’t buy in a regular supermarket without it being packaged in plastic’ such as laundry, cleaning and hygiene products.
Customers can either bring their own containers, which are weighed before refilling, or use paper bags for some products.
Ms Stokes told the MoS: ‘I have people that will come in with a recipe and then just buy the 100 grams of lentils, 100 grams of this and 20 grams of that. So they’re really on board with cutting down on food waste but also cutting down and all these extra packets of stuff in your cupboards that you may not actually use at all.’ She described it as a ‘completely different experience’ from shopping in a supermarket, with customers ‘often saying it’s like coming into a shop in the olden days where you come in and have a chat with the owner’, and does not expect much enthusiasm from supermarkets on the refill proposal.
‘I think supermarkets would see that as a load of hassle for them, as extra work. They’d have to have extra staff on cleaning up the spills and helping people refill. So while I love the idea of it being a more widespread idea, I actually can‘t see supermarkets taking it on board because of the extra cost and hassle for them.’
‘I can’t see supermarkets taking it on board’