Sainsbury’s to roll out new recycling system in 520 stores

Sainsbury’s has revealed that it will be rolling out a new recycling system in 520 of its supermarkets, allowing customers to recycle all flexible plastic packaging.

Following a successful trial in the North East of England, the front of store recycling points will make it easier for customers to make more sustainable choices by offering a recycling system where they can correctly dispose of flexible plastic packaging.

This includes packaging such as crisp packets, food pouches, salad bags and biscuit and cake wrappers which 83% of UK local authorities currently don’t accept for recycling.

The expanded initiative has the potential to significantly decrease the amount of plastic packaging going to landfill, with a report from WRAP estimating that flexible film contributed towards 290,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2019.

The introduction is the latest move in the retailer’s initiative to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic in its own operations while continuing to make it easier for customers to recycle.

It also follows the announcement in May that Sainsbury’s joined the Flexible Plastic Fund which aims to ensure flexible plastics are properly recycled.

Claire Hughes, director of product and innovation at Sainsbury’s, said: “We’re really excited to announce the mass rollout of the Flexible Plastics Recycling scheme in over 520 of our stores, helping our customers to recycle more of their plastic packaging, instead of it ending up as waste.

“Making recycling easier for our customers is a key part of our strategy to minimise the impact of single-use plastics on the environment, alongside our own ambitious target of reducing the use of plastics in our own operations by 50% by 2025.”