Supermarkets churning out 59bn items of plastic a year
SUPERMARKETS are flooding the country with more than 59billion pieces of plastic packaging every year. the ten biggest chains are responsible for more than 810,000 tonnes of single-use plastic, a survey shows.
And seven churn out the equivalent of more than 2,000 throwaway plastic items for every household in the land. Plastic waste is further fuelled by billions of bags for fresh fruit and veg and bigger carrier bags at the tills.
Despite promises to cut back on plastic, five supermarkets have no specific targets to reduce packaging.
With most revealing annual reductions of just 5 per cent, it would take them 20 years to completely rid their shelves of throwaway plastic. Retailers were ranked on their commitments to reduce single-use plastic, eliminate non-recyclable plastic packaging, engage with supply chains and report on how they are performing.
iceland comes top with its ambitious plan to phase out own-brand plastic packaging by 2023. it has already swapped plastic trays used for ready meals for wood-based ones.
tesco and Asda lag further down, with Sainsbury’s last.
in general, retailers are focusing on switching to recyclable plastic and other materials rather than scrapping wasteful packaging. for example, only four – Morrisons, tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s – offer customers options to use refillable or reusable containers. Marks & Spencer, Asda, Aldi and Lidl are investigating the idea.
the Co-op has the largest share of own-brand widely recyclable products, at 79 per cent. for most others, about a third of their plastic – by weight – is not widely recyclable.
the Daily Mail has run a tenyear campaign to highlight plastic blight, including Banish the Bags, instrumental in the introduction of a 5p levy on carrier bags, and turn the tide on Plastic, aimed at stopping waste in the world’s oceans.
Sarah Baulch, of the environmental investigation Agency, which conducted the survey with Greenpeace UK, said: ‘it is clear we cannot simply recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis and yet this remains the priority area for many major chains. it’s high time supermarkets fundamentally rethink their relationship with singleuse plastic packaging.’
Peter Andrews, of the British Retail Consortium, which speaks for most big chains, said: ‘Billions of tonnes of waste has been prevented so far and the industry is working towards the goal of 100 per cent of plastic packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 at the latest and eliminating all unnecessary single-use packaging.’
But he criticised councils for not having a uniform system for recycling plastic, saying: ‘We are concerned the pace of change is being hampered by a lack of recycling infrastructure.’
Sainsbury’s said: ‘We are very disappointed with this result, which doesn’t reflect our efforts over many years to reduce the amount of packaging we use and ensure it’s recyclable.’