Two more leading supermarkets to remove colour pigment from lids in a bid to improve recycling rates
Aldi and Asda are the latest supermarkets to announce they are switching to clear bottle caps on their milk ranges.
The UK’s third- and fourth-largest supermarkets are replacing coloured caps in a bid to improve the recyclability of bottles.
The switch means that a combined extra 468 tonnes of High-Density Polythene (rHDPE) per year is now able to be recycled to create new milk bottles.
Asda, in partnership with Arla, the UK’s largest dairy cooperative, is introducing clear tops across its own-label milk range – equating to 207 million plastic milk caps each year. The change will also affect Yeo Valley fresh milk.
Aldi is switching to colourless milk caps across all of its 990 UK stores, following a successful trial last year.
Customers in both stores will be able to distinguish between the different varieties of milk by the coloured labelling on all milk bottles.
Fiona Dobson, Asda’s lead packaging strategy and innovation manager, said: “We are committed to finding ways to reduce our environmental impact.
“The introduction of clear caps on our milk bottles is part of our wider commitment to drive 100% recyclability packaging and increase recycled content levels across all of our products by 2025.”
Luke Emery, Plastics and Packaging Director at Aldi, said: “We are constantly reviewing ways to become a more sustainable supermarket and cut down on single-use plastic. That means working closely with our suppliers to find solutions that will make a real difference.
“Improving the recyclability of packaging on an everyday product like milk has been well received by our customers, who are increasingly aware of products being environmentally friendly.”
Milk bottle tops have always proved more difficult to recycle than plastic bottles themselves – or indeed soft plastics such as clear polythene bags – due to the colour pigment contained in the caps that can not be easily recycled back into food-grade packaging.
As with many recent green packaging initiatives, it was the UK’s discount supermarkets that lead the way in tackling the issue, by introducing clear bottle tops to their products.
Along with Aldi’s trial, last year also saw Lidl introduce clear bottle tops to its own milk range in November, following a successful trial.
Jayne Paramor, strategic technical manager for plastics at the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP), welcomes leading UK retailers making small but significant steps towards a circular economy for plastic packaging.
“Clear, colourless plastics have much higher demand as recycled material, so removing pigments will help to produce valuable recycled plastics and build end markets for these reprocessed materials, ensuring that they find a second life as new products, including new milk bottles and lids”, said Paramor.
“This small but impactful change is helping to make the UK’s milk bottles – which are already widely recycled into new milk bottles and a fantastic example of the circular economy for plastics in action – even more recyclable. An exemplary step in developing a circular economy for plastics.”
