Customers can recycle their soft plastics at 295 Waitrose stores
Waitrose has announced the launch of soft plastic recycling points at most of its UK stores.
The supermarket – part of the John Lewis partnership – has carried out a successful trial and considerable due diligence to find a UK-based waste management solution.
Customers can now recycle clean and dry soft plastic at 295 Waitrose stores. Recyclable items include:
- Carrier bags
- Bread bags
- Salad, rice and pasta bags
- Frozen food bags
- Cereal liners
- Toilet roll wrapping
- Cheese, meat and fish wrapping
- Crisps, chocolate and biscuit wrapping
- Baby & pet food pouches
- Bubble wrap
- Cling film
Caroline Pinnell, Sustainability & Ethics Specialist at Waitrose, said: “We know that recycling is a key priority for many of our customers so we’re delighted to be able to offer flexible plastic recycling across a number of our shops.
“Across both Waitrose and John Lewis, we are continuing to strip away single-use packaging and provide our customers with convenient reuse, refill and recycling solutions.
“We are on track to meet our 2023 Waitrose packaging target, that all of our own-brand packaging will be reusable or made from widely recyclable or home-compostable material by the end of 2023, two years ahead of the industry-wide WRAP UK Plastic Pact.”
Film and flexible plastic packaging accounts for around 25% of all consumer packaging, whilst only 8% of all soft plastics were recycled in the UK in 2021 (Source: Edie).
This figure is an increase on the 6% recycling rate from 2019, but it remains very low, mainly due to a lack of kerbside collections and limitations in recycling infrastructure.
Soft plastics collected by Waitrose will be sent to a reprocessing plant in Glasgow where it will be washed, separated and then turned into flakes or pellets that can be made into new products or materials.
Recycled soft plastics can be reprocessed to produce yet more plastic bags, such as bin bags and waste sacks, carrier bags and mailing bags.
They also offer the following range of post-recycling uses:
- Secondary product packaging (e.g. toilet paper packaging)
- Shrink wrap for the transportation of goods
- Bags for DIY, industrial and horticultural products
- Plastic furniture
- Guttering
- Buckets
Image courtesy of John Lewis Partnership.
