Quorn ditches black plastic food trays in war on waste

BLACK plastic trays are being scrapped by the UK-based food giant Quorn in a battle against waste.

It will prevent some 297 tonnes of black plastic going to landfill or being burned for energy in Britain each year, the company said.

Billions of black plastic trays, which are used in supermarkets for ready meals, fresh produce, meat and fish, are fuelling a massive tide of waste and pollution.

The trays cannot be picked up by the laser sorting devices on conveyor belts in rubbish collection and recycling centres, so are not recovered for recycling.

Quorn is switching to white, opaque or clear plastic trays, which can be picked up and recycled in UK centres. The company makes a wide range of ready meals and other products containing Quorn, a meat substitute protein.

By the end of this month, the vast majority of Quorn’s chilled range will move to white, opaque and clear recyclable plastics. The brand, which is exported to 20 markets, is aiming to phase out the remainder of black plastics in its Deli range, which accounts for about 10 per cent of its chilled products, before the end of this year.

Quorn, whose head office is in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, is the latest of a number of stores and brands to try to find alternatives to black plastic.

Waitrose is switching the black plastic lids on drinks bottles to clear plastic to boost the number that are recycled. It is also ending the use of black plastic trays for fruit, vegetables, meat and fish by the end of this year. Iceland supermarkets are going even further with a pledge to remove plastic trays completely as part of a wider pledge to stop using any plastic packaging in its own label range by 2023.

The Daily Mail has led calls to stop plastic pollution with its Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign, which has highlighted the threat it poses to the environment, wildlife and the oceans. In April last year, the official waste advisory group WRAP warned that black plastic was not being recycled by local councils and instead was, often, going to landfill.

Earlier this year WRAP announced a UK Plastic Pact, which was signed by stores and brands who are committed to remove all single use throwaway plastic packaging by 2025.

Quorn said its decision to change its trays ‘is the first such significant effort to reduce, and eventually eliminate, black plastic from its supply chain by a major food brand’. Chief executive Kevin Brennan said: ‘We view this as the right thing to do, despite the six-figure cost.’ ÷Plastic has been named the children’s word of the year by Oxford University Press after it analysed more than 130,000 short stories.

A large number of the stories, submitted to a competition run by Radio 2’s Chris Evans Breakfast Show, talked about the dangers of plastic, particularly in the context of ocean pollution.