One bagful’s the limit for Ocado plastic recycling plan

A “BAG of bags” limit has been introduced by online grocer Ocado to prevent shoppers offloading too much stockpiled plastic accumulated during lockdown.

Ocado will begin collecting customers’ plastic bags from next week and has said it will take as many as can be fit into a single one of its carriers.

The retailer previously had a limit of 99 bags returned at a time. It is unclear whether the new policy supersedes that limit.

The online grocer’s bag recycling scheme, where customers are refunded the 5p charge for plastic bags they give back to delivery drivers, has been suspended since earlier in the pandemic. This policy will now be ended.

A blog on its website read: “The time has come to say goodbye to that everexpanding carrier bag collection you’ve got going.

“From September 22, you can put your extra bags into one single bag to be collected and recycled.” The blog added: “Don’t worry if you have a few other brands’ bags mixed in there. We won’t judge.

“If you’ve got more than just one single bagful, we’ll pick up another bagful to be recycled during each delivery to your home.”

The bags are taken by the driver to be recycled.

Ocado ended its long-standing partnership with Waitrose earlier this month, switching over to Marks & Spencer as part of a new deal.

The online grocery retailer stocks an initial range of 4,400 M&S food products, including its popular Percy Pig sweets, replacing around 4,000 Waitrose items.

It will add a further 800 to the range in the run-up to Christmas and also currently sells around 700 M&S home and lifestyle products on its website.

On Tuesday, it said the switch had gone well, with consumers buying more M&S products than Waitrose products in the same period last year.

“The weighting of M&S products in the average Ocado basket is higher than Waitrose prior to the switchover, reflecting positive customer reaction to the addition of M&S to the range,” Ocado said.

Waitrose goods are available online through the chain’s own website.

‘The time has come to say goodbye to that everexpanding carrier bag collection you’ve got going’