SUPERMARKET BANS PLASTIC

Exclusive: Iceland is f irst store in world to remove plastic packaging from ALL its own-label products

A UK supermarket will be the first in the world to remove plastic packaging from all of its own-label products.

Iceland’s landmark move puts pressure on its rivals to follow suit amid public demands to turn back the tide of plastic pollution. The company, which has more than 900 stores, has a five-year plan to ditch plastic from all of its own-brand products.

Packaging on 1,400 product lines will be replaced, and the changes involve more than 250 suppliers. First to go will be plastic ready meal trays in favour of wood-pulp alternatives made in Britain. Plastic bags used for frozen vegetables and other food will then be dropped in favour of paper alternatives.

Iceland, which has already removed plastic disposable straws from its own range, is

EU MIGRANTS would be handed the right to travel to the UK until the end of 2020 and then stay on indefinitely, under Brussels demands for a Brexit transition period.

The bloc will ignore the Prime Minister’s wish to take back control of Britain’s borders, and instead say that the UK should remain open for two years after the split.

Brussels will seek to block Britain from creating its own post-Brexit immigration system and delay a previously agreed ‘cutoff’ point for new arrivals.

Under the landmark first-phase deal agreed between the UK and the EU last year, Britain set out plans to start implementing a citizens’ rights regime on the day we leave the bloc in March 2019. This will involve many of the 3.2million EU citizens living in the UK being able to apply for ‘settled status’, while tough border laws would be applied to new arrivals.

However, in draft negotiating ‘directives’ setting out the EU’s demands for the transition period, Brussels will instead seek to delay the landmark change in UK immigration policy. Theresa May has prealso

‘Certainty to businesses’

viously acknowledged that a two-year transition was necessary to avoid a cliff edge Brexit and assist the business community – but EU attempts to gain a say over UK borders and citizenship rules as part of the arrangement are likely to infuriate Downing Street.

EU diplomats are also considering plans to prolong the transition period, despite Mrs May’s insistence that it should be limited to about two years.

While Mr Barnier has suggested the transition should end on December 31, 2020, some member states believe a clause should be inserted in the agreement that allows for the deal to be extended.

The directives will also raise concerns that the EU is determined to try to issue diktats to the UK even after the divorce has taken place next year.

Boris Johnson will warn ministers this week there is no point in leaving the EU if it remains a ‘rule-taker’ from Brussels. The Foreign Secretary is expected to use a meeting of Mrs May’s Brexit ‘war cabinet’ tomorrow to warn against signing up to a Norway-style model that leaves the UK shackled to the EU indefinitely.