Lidl has announced two new initiatives to reduce plastic use and give customers more sustainable choices when shopping.
As part of its REset Plastic strategy, the supermarket has confirmed plans to replace all single use fruit and vegetable plastic bags in its UK stores with compostable bags, resulting in the removal of 275 tonnes of conventional single use plastic.
The new compostable bags are designed to offer a secondary use as a kitchen caddy liner for domestic food waste collections or home composting, providing them with a longer life-cycle.
The UK’s seventh biggest supermarket has also launched a trial recycling scheme for plastic bags and wrapping across 12 of its stores in the West Midlands.
A similar scheme was launched by Co-Op earlier this year and will focus on ‘soft plastics’ such as carrier bags, bread bags and crisp packets, which more than 80% of UK local authorities do not collect from homes as part of their regular recycling collections.
Lidl will allow customers to return these items – from any brand or retailer – to easily accessible drop-off points at the front of the stores, before ensuring that all eligible soft plastics are recycled into products, such as refuse sacks and rigid construction products.
If the trial is successful, the German retailer – who are committed to making 100% of own brand packaging widely recyclable, reusable or refillable by 2025 – will roll the scheme out across all of its UK stores.
Lidl GB CEO Christian Härtnagel said: “We are committed to tackling excessive plastic waste and our compostable fruit and vegetable bags are the latest innovation to help limit the amount of plastic in our environment.
“As a bricks and mortar retailer, how we operate in our stores, and the packaging we use, plays such a vital role in helping customers to tackle their plastic consumption.
“By offering convenient solutions such as compostable bags and making it easier for customers to recycle more plastic through our in-store drop off points, we are hoping to give customers the opportunity to take small steps to reduce and recycle their plastic packaging.”
The move was also welcomed by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the leading charity that promotes and encourages sustainable resource use, working with governments, businesses and citizens across six continents.
Helen Bird, Strategic Technical Manager at WRAP, said: “While we need to reduce single use packaging where possible, where it’s not, packaging must be recyclable and that’s what members of The UK Plastics Pact have pledged to do by 2025.
“It’s great news that Lidl is taking its responsibility seriously in this area and introducing collection points for bags and wrapping under The Pact. Our research showed that many citizens were willing to bring this material back to stores and we’re encouraged by the success of these collections to date.”
Image courtesy of Lidl GB.
