Plastic Waste

Sarah Williamson recently contacted Waitrose regarding their plastic packaging.  The response from Waitrose may be of interest, and certainly demonstrates that enough individuals making large companies know their opinions can have a positive impact:

"Reducing our impact on the environment is really important to us and we know it is to our customers too.  I would like to give you an overview on how we are currently reducing plastic use from our packaging.

We've committed to making all our own-label packaging widely recyclable (using the widely recycled logo), reusable, or home compostable by 2025. 80% of our packaging is already widely recyclable and we have reduced overall packaging by nearly 50% since 2009. We were the first supermarket to stop selling products containing microbeads from September 2016 and we exclusively sell paper-stem cotton buds.

We will no longer offer takeaway disposable cups from autumn 2018 and this will save 52 million cups a year.

Since April 2018 our cafes have been moving to only offer paper straws and from September 2018 we will no longer sell single-use plastic straws.

Black plastic is a top priority for us because it's not easy to recycle and infra-red sensors in recycling plants struggle to pick it up. From the end of this year, we will stop using black packaging altogether for our meat, fish and fruit and veg. We've committed to stop using black plastic packaging for all our own label goods by the end of 2019. We’re currently moving all our Food To Go drink lids from black to clear which will be a small but important step.

We’re always looking to innovate with non-plastic packaging and by the end of July 2018 all our Waitrose Duchy tomatoes will be in punnets made from tomato leaves and paper. At the beginning of June 2018 we trialled two of our Italian ready meals in trays made out of wood - they feel like cardboard.

Last summer we introduced sandwich packaging which makes it easier for the cardboard to be separated from the plastic, helping boost the ease of recycling.

We have made small changes across our own-brand range that add up to big reductions - for example moving steak to a flat vacuum pack from a plastic tray. At the end of October 2017 our wholebird chickens had a significant amount of plastic removed from its packaging. In November 2017 the packaging of Waitrose Duchy Organic jumbo oats 1kg changed from plastic to cardboard."