Asda removes 6,500 tonnes of plastic from own-brand packaging

The supermarket chain claims it has reduced the amount of plastic used to sell almost 1,000 products

Asda

Asda has removed 6,500 tonnes of plastic from its own-brand packaging in the last year.

The supermarket chain says it has managed to achieve the reduction since February 2018 primarily through product innovation and redesign.

It claims it has reduced plastic from almost 1,000 products, including fresh fruit, vegetables, electronics and homeware, saving a volume of plastic equivalent to the weight of 600 million plastic bottles.

Examples of improvements include swapping ready-meal trays from black plastic to foil, changing pizza trays from polystyrene to cardboard, taking plastic covers off over 50 million greetings cards and removing plastic windows from more than 1.6 million mince pies at Christmas.

The brand has also changed all of its fresh produce trays from black plastic to recyclable, clear polymers and says it will continue to work with industry bodies and relevant organisations to share best practice and develop new ideas.

Roger Burnley, President and CEO of Asda said: “In many cases packaging is still essential to protect against waste but avoiding the use of unnecessary plastic will rightly be the starting point for all of our packaging designs in future.”

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