Take your own Tupperware to supermarket to pack fresh food

SHOPPERS will soon be urged to take Tupperware to the supermarket as part of a crackdown on plastic waste.

Morrisons will next month offer customers the option to have raw meat and fish weighed at the counter and then placed into their own containers, cutting out the need for plastic bags.

Fishmongers and butchers will then place a sticky label on customers’ boxes so they can take them to the till to be scanned.

The option, which is expected to be adopted by other supermarkets, will not be available to cooked meats and fish due to hygiene concerns.

Morrisons is also testing “plasticfree” fruit and vegetable aisles across some stores, in which polythene multipacks will be replaced with loose fruit and veg or paper bags.

The move comes as every major supermarket in Britain yesterday pledged to eradicate unnecessary single-use plastics by 2025, under a new “UK Plastics Pact”.

The agreement, organised by Wrap, the Government-backed waste charity, means single-use plastics will only be allowed if they are deemed absolutely necessary and are made from recyclable materials.

More than 40 firms have signed the pact, meaning they have also promised that all the plastic packaging they produce will be reusable, recyclable or compostable within seven years, while two thirds will be recycled or composted, up from 45 per cent today.

Iceland was the only supermarket not to join the pledge. However, in January it became the first major retailer to commit to eliminate plastic packaging for all its own-brand products within five years.

Richard Walker, its boss, said: “We have taken the decision not to participate directly in their Plastic Pact because we have already taken a more far-reaching decision to eliminate plastic packaging from our own label range in its entirety by 2023. Given the scale of our ambition, we feel that is right to focus all Iceland’s resources on delivering this.”

Tesco is also trialling the same scheme across five stores from next month, with the hope of eventually rolling it out nationally.

Supermarket bosses are already announcing a range of ways they are cutting down on plastic, with M&S poised to remove plastic covers from 500,000 cashmere jumpers, swap plastic cutlery for wooden ones, and stop using plastic straws. Tesco is cutting plastic packaging on baby wipes and meat.

Peter Skelton, who leads the UK Plastics Pact at Wrap, welcomed Morrisons’ initiative. He said, “The key to success of the UK Plastics Pact is looking for innovations and inspirations to change the linear model of make, use, and disposing of plastic packaging.

“It’s really encouraging on day one of this new collaboration to see retailers and brands so on board, and we look forward to learning how the Morrisons move goes.”