Waitrose scraps ‘plastic poison’
BLACK plastic trays used by supermarkets for fresh produce are facing the axe.
Waitrose has announced it will stop using them within two years with other chains expected to follow.
Recycling sites, which use infrared sensors, find it hard to pick them out because of their colour. This means most of the two to three billion produced each year are burnt or sent to landfill.
Waitrose says it will stop using the ‘plastic poison’ black trays for any fresh produce, meat and fish by the end of this year. It will then stopping using the trays for all ready meals, chilled desserts and other products by the end of next year.
Iceland has already pledged to stop using plastic packaging for its own-label products, including ready meals, within five years.
Waitrose, which has 352 stores, claims its move away from black plastic trays will be achieved more quickly than any other retailer. The
Daily Mail’s ten-year campaign on plastic bags, microbeads, plastic bottles and coffee cups, has played a key role in highlighting the threat from plastic pollution to the environment. And Sir David Attenborough has featured the threat to the oceans in Blue Planet II.
Tor Harris of Waitrose said last night: ‘Like the Daily Mail, we recognise that reducing plastics is a really important issue for the environment and for customers. Becoming black plastic-free is the right thing to do.’