Following a successful trial in the North East of England recycling polypropylene (PP) film in selected stores, UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has rolled out a new recycling system to a total of 520 supermarkets allowing customers to recycle all flexible plastic packaging which is not commonly accepted for kerbside collection by local authorities.
The front of store recycling points set out to make it easier for consumers to correctly dispose of flexible packaging such as crisp packets, food pouches, salad bags and biscuit and cake wrappers which 83% of UK local authorities currently don’t accept for recycling, according to WRAP reports.
The expanded initiative has the potential to significantly decrease the amount of plastic packaging going to landfill, with a report from WRAP estimating that flexible film contributed towards 290,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2019.
