Supermarket giant Tesco has launched a plastic-free trial on fruit and vegetables in a bid to reduce packaging waste.
The month-long pilot, which began on 25 March, will see Tesco Extra stores in Watford and Swindon remove all plastic packaging from 45 products where loose versions are available, including apples, bananas, onions, peppers, mushrooms and avocados.
The supermarket chain previously announced plans to ban hard-to-recycle plastic packaging by 2019, whilst pledging to make all packing fully-recyclable by 2025.
Sarah Bradbury, director of quality at Tesco, said: “We want to remove as much plastic as we can from our products, only using what is necessary to protect and preserve our food.
“We hope this trial proves popular with customers. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the results, including any impact on food waste.”
A report by Greenpeace in November revealed that the UK’s 10 leading supermarkets are putting 810,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging on to the market every year.
In addition, the supermarkets are responsible for putting 1.1bn ‘single-use’ plastic bags, 1.2bn plastic bags for fruit and vegetables and 958m reusable ‘bags for life’ on the market, according to a Greenpeace survey.
Tesco is the UK’s largest supermarket chain, commanding over a quarter (27.4%) of the market.
The results of their new trial will be awaited with interest by a packaging industry seeking to balance increasing consumer demand for a reduction in plastic packaging with a reduction in food waste.
Last year, the Waste and Resources Action Programme reported that UK households produced 7.1 million tonnes of food waste in 2015. This is out of a total of 10.2 million tonnes of post-farm food waste, worth an estimated £20 billion.
Unwanted food that ends up in landfill creates methane – a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Currently only 35% of households in England are obliged to put food waste in a separate bin or caddy, compared to 56% in Scotland and 100% in Wales.
