(Sharecast News) - Sainsbury plans to introduce refillable packaging for products such as milk and fizzy drinks through the adoption of returnable glass bottles as a part of the fight against plastic pollution.
The company pledged to halve the amount of plastic used in its stores by 2025.
It currently uses 120,000 tonnes of plastic, although in 2018 the retailer managed to reduce its use of packaging by 1% and has already committed to reducing the plastic bags from its fruit and veg sections by the end of September.
Sainsbury's will also encourage customers to bring their own containers for products ranging from shampoo to raw meat and fish, and will sell more products loose by weight.
On Friday, Sainsbury's was set to meet with food manufacturers, packaging suppliers, material scientists and the waste and recycling industry in order to find more solutions.
"Reducing plastic and packaging is not easy," said Mike Coupe, Sainsbury's chief executive. "We can't do this on our own and we will be asking our suppliers and our customers to work with us."
He invited clients and staff to submit new ideas to reduce the plastic waste generated from its stores.
The UK government believed that the key to the intractable issue lay in reducing overall levels of waste and not in replacing it with biodegradable alternatives, because the country's infrastructure was not prepared to dispose of it effectively.
Sainsbury's (SBRY)3 May 2024 08:41
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