Sainsbury ‘worst’ for plastic gripes

Sainsbury’s has been labelled “worst in class” after receiving the highest number of complaints about plastic packaging among the country’s top supermarket chains.

The firm was on the receiving end of more than 4,700 out of a total of nearly 13,000 complaints about plastic sent to the big four retailers via Twitter last year.

Sainsbury’s narrowly beat rival Tesco to the top spot, despite having a smaller share of the market.

The two came ahead of Morrisons and Asda, with 2,300 and 1,100 respectively.

A survey carried out by Greenpeace last year ranked Sainsbury’s bottom of the supermarket league for its efforts to reduce plastic.

Environmentalists say the firm is “failing” customers.

Elena Polisano, ocean plastics campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Each and every day Sainsbury’s own customers are urging them to ditch throwaway plastic. Yet right now Sainsbury’s are failing them.

“In fact our research shows they are worst in class on plastic amongst all of the UK supermarkets.

“It looks suspiciously like Sainsbury’s couldn’t care less about plastic pollution. If they want to keep their customers coming back they should step up and pledge to eliminate all unnecessary and unrecyclable plastic by the end of next year.”