Supermarkets Get Serious About Recycling

Supermarkets Get Serious About Recycling

It’s easy to think that supermarkets are just big corporations that want to take our cash and don’t particularly care about anything but profits, but in recent years, some supermarket chains have been making strides towards reducing their impact on the environment. They are realising that if they want to build customer loyalty, they have to show that they care about the issues that customers care about-namely not choking the environment with mountains of plastic.

Tesco launch in-store plastic recycling scheme

Tesco has launched an in-store recycling scheme that will allow its customers to drop off any ‘soft plastics’ like bread bags and crisp packets which are often not accepted in kerbside recycling schemes.

The supermarket giant is piloting the scheme in 10 of its stores around Swindon and Bristol, and if it’s successful, it could be rolled out across the country.

This is a big step, as shoppers in the UK buy billions of bread, fruit, and veg bags each year, most of which end up being incinerated or are sent to landfill. Now, they can take the bags to Tesco and drop them in the collection bins.

The plastic that’s collected will then be recycled using a specialist process invented by Recycling Technologies. The process turns the plastics into a type of oil, known as Plaxx, which is then used to make brand new plastic.

The conservation charity, WWF, has praised Tesco for the move. A spokesperson said that it was great to see Tesco giving customers an easy way to recycle more and waste less.

Tesco has also signed up to the UK Plastics Pact, along with the UK’s other five other biggest supermarkets, who have all pledged to make their packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.

Every Lidl helps

Also introducing an in-store recycling scheme is the budget supermarket chain Lidl. It’s introducing recycling stations in all 160 of its Irish stores from the end of May. It hopes that this will result in tonnes of plastic, cardboard, and other packaging being recycled instead of ending up in landfill. The scheme has already been trialled in three stores and it proved to be a success.

The managing director of Lidl Ireland said that though Ireland is one of the best recyclers in the EU, it has a lofty 65% recycling target to meet by 2025, and added that the company hopes to help the country reach its target.