Sainsbury’s makes major change to food products in-store and online in drive to cut waste

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Sainsbury’s has said that the announcement is the latest step in reducing its use of plastic packaging by 50 percent by 2025. Earlier this year, the retailer cut down the plastic packaging on its own brand pancake range as well as introducing a new trial of recycling facilities in selected stores. 

The change, which marks the latest step by the retailer to reduce plastic waste, will see its own brand of lunchbox juice cartons removing 18.5 million plastic straws from circulation each year. 

These single use plastic straws tend to end up in landfill and can cause harm to the environment.

Although the majority of straws state that they can be recycled, they are often not due to the size of them.

Sainsbury’s juice cartons will see newly packaged products in-stores this week and will be available online from April.

The new design will offer customers an eco-friendlier way to grab a drink on the go.

Claire Hughes, Director of Product and Innovation at Sainsbury’s, said: “As we work to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic packaging, we’re committed to trialling and testing innovative new packaging alternatives for our products.

“Removing 18.5 million straws from circulation each year is a huge achievement and brings us closer to our goal.

“Looking forward, we will continue to work closely with our suppliers, manufacturers, customers and other retailers to reduce the amount of single use plastic across the supply chain, whilst also investing in research and development of materials and technologies.

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“We look forward to listening to feedback from our colleagues and customers about this latest packaging move.”

On top of this, the supermarket giant is also working hard to replace the plastic sleeve for straws with an alternative material.

The film on the carton multipacks can be returned by customers to the front of store film collection points in more than 600 of its stores nationwide to be recycled. 

Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s announced that it will trial an in store recycling system that could help save 7,000 tonnes of plastic a year.

The recycling points will be set up at certain stores and will allow customers to easily recycle Polypropylene film, commonly found in household waste.

The common plastic is found in items like salad bags and frozen food bags.

Other products that Sainsbury’s will accept to be recycled are bread bags, cereal bags, bags and wrappings used for fruit and vegetables, biscuit and cake wrappers, toilet roll and kitchen roll wrapping, clothing bags, magazine and newspaper wrappers, and more.

The retailer also earlier this year cut down on the amount of plastic packaging it used for its pancake mix by 86 percent.

The new cartons were expected to save a total of 25 tonnes of plastic each year.

What’s more, Sainsbury’s also recently cut the amount of plastic packaging for steaks by 70 percent as well as saving seven tonnes of the material from confectionery due to thinner packaging. 

Customers will see major packaging changes over the coming years.

In other supermarket news, Asda has also announced a packaging ban that will scrap single use plastics on fruit and vegetables.

Instead, shoppers will be able to purchase a reusable 30p bag made from recycled bottles. 

The change will see the ban at every one of the supermarkets stores.

Dominic Edwards, Asda director of produce, said: “We know that our customers and colleagues are really passionate about doing the right thing for the environment and this move is just another way we are helping them make sustainable choices, without compromising on the quality of our produce.

“Following some really positive feedback on our trial, we are excited to roll out the removal of the plastic bags across all our stores, as we continue to work towards our plastic reduction targets as a business.”

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