Supermarkets failing to cut down on plastic
CUT-PRICE supermarkets have been accused of putting profits before the environment after a new report showed use of plastic has risen by more than 900,000 tonnes in the past year, despite pledges to slash packaging.
A report from the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace showed that seven out of UK’S ten leading supermarkets had increased their plastic footprint, with only Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s achieving marginal reductions.
Asda, Aldi and Lidl were at the bottom of the league table for cutting plastic. Many companies have added small print to their pledges allowing them to increase packaging if their sales rise.
Fiona Nicholls, ocean plastics campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “Supermarkets that are failing to cut plastic as their business grows are frankly failing their customers. That’s putting profit before the environment, and such policies are contributing to our plastic pollution crisis.”
Supermarkets were responsible for 58.3 billion pieces of plastic packaging in the past year – nearly one million tonnes more than the previous year.
Ranked out of five categories including progress made on reducing plastic, future plans, recyclability, transparency and influence on suppliers, Waitrose and Morrisons were the best performers, while Iceland dropped from the top spot last year to seventh place this year. Sainsbury’s went from bottom in 2018 to third place this year. Only Tesco had given suppliers an ultimatum to cut excessive plastic or face products being delisted.
Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland Foods, said its customers did not have the luxury of spending more money on packaging as they were in “a different demographic to the new leaders in the survey”.
An Aldi spokesman said: “We are committed to reducing plastic packaging and have made positive changes across our business, which have been welcomed by Greenpeace.”
Asda said it was disappointed by the ranking and it aimed to make all its packaging recyclable by 2025.