Sainsbury’s reduces plastic waste by almost 700 tonnes through fish and chicken packaging revamp

Sainsbury’s is introducing a number of packaging changes across its own-brand chicken and fish lines, with the new packaging set to save 694 tonnes of plastic a year – the weight of almost 100 elephants1. All own-brand salmon fillet trays are switching from pulp cardboard instead of plastic, a UK retailer first, which will result in 70% less plastic, saving 346 tonnes of plastic a year. Alongside this, Sainsbury’s is rolling out cardboard trays across its Taste the Difference and by Sainsbury’s breaded chicken lines, set to save 300 tonnes…

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Asda changes beef mince packaging to save over 60 tonnes of plastic each year

Asda has announced it is removing traditional plastic tray packaging across its Just Essentials beef mince range and is replacing it with a lighter and recyclable flexible plastic film alternative. The new packaging, which is now available in stores and online, contains 60% less plastic than previous version and is fully recyclable through Asda’s in-store collection points, which will help to remove 67.6 tonnes of plastic from Asda’s supply chain annually. The previous version of the packaging was used from May 2022 through to January 2024. The vacuum-pack method of…

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M&S removes over 4 million units of plastic packaging in Cafes across UK

Marks & Spencer has introduced new recyclable paper packaging across its range of sandwiches and toasties available in all M&S Cafés across the UK. From this month, the entire range of M&S’ Café sandwiches and toasties will be available in easy to recycle FSC approved cardboard or paper packaging which uses 79% less plastic – but doesn’t compromise quality or customer selection. The small window allows customers to see the product inside but is accepted by recyclers to be recycled with paper in the paper waste stream. With over 300…

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Sainsbury’s makes its greatest standalone plastics removal through mushroom punnets

Sainsbury’s is switching its own-brand mushroom punnets from plastic to cardboard in a move which will save over 775 tonnes of plastic, equivalent to over 52 million pieces of plastic a year. This is the retailer’s biggest ever single plastics removal in its history – equivalent to the weight of 43 full London double decker buses. The change will have rolled out to all 13 own-brand lines including top sellers such as whole baby button, closed cup, organic and chestnut mushrooms by the end of the month, helping customers to…

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Watching eye encourages plastics recycling

Plastic in waste streams used for energy recovery is an unnecessary source of fossil carbon dioxide emissions. Three Swedish cities are now testing a new digital camera technology with the goal of making it profitable to improve waste sorting and increase recycling. Waste incineration in state-of-art energy recovery plants is an important service to society. The recovered energy is then a fantastic source of energy for district heating. But if plastic waste is not first sorted out, that part is an unnecessary source of fossil CO2 emissions. Until today, it…

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