Waitrose scraps plastic wrapping on multi-packs

WAITROSE is to remove single-use plastic from millions of cans of baked beans and chopped tomatoes after coming under pressure from customers.

Shoppers will no longer buy multipacks of cans, wrapped in plastic, but will have to pick them up separately.

But tins will still go through the checkout automatically as a multi-buy deal.

The initiative will be tested at 17 stores for four of the upmarket supermarket’s best-selling canned foods – Waitrose baked beans, plum tomatoes, chopped tomatoes in juice and sweetcorn.

It comes after the company was inundated with letters and social media requests to get rid of multi-pack plastic. The move will cut its plastic waste by 1 tonnes a year and, if successful, it will consider rolling it out to all stores.

Supermarkets have come under growing pressure to reduce plastic, following the Daily Mail’s decade-long campaign to end plastic waste, which pollutes oceans and threatens wildlife.

Ten of Britain’s largest supermarkets and grocery chains produce more than

10,000 tonnes of single-use plastic every year, Greenpeace has found.

Fiona Nicholls, from Greenpeace UK, said: ‘The plastic film on multi-packs is almost always unrecyclable and is a prime example of pointless packaging. Other supermarkets should follow suit and ditch multi-packs without delay.’