Sainsbury’s has introduced a new in-store recycling system

Sainsbury’s has introduced a new recycling system where customers can recycle their Polypropylene (PP) film, which is found in several household products and is often difficult to recycle at home. 

Items commonly packed with PP film include salad bags and frozen food bags, PP film is currently not accepted by most UK councils, which means customers are currently unable to recycle it at home.

A report commissioned by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that 266,000 tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2019 came from Polypropylene (PP) plastics.

In a bid to reduce this plastic, 63 stores in the North East of England will be adopting this trial.

If this trial is successful, Sainsbury’s will roll out the PP film collection system to all of its supermarkets by the end of 2021.

Claire Hughes, director of product and innovation at Sainsbury’s, said: ‘Sainsbury’s is dedicated to trialling and testing new initiatives as part of our ongoing commitment to make it easier for customers to recycle. We hope that by trialling flexible film recycling points in our stores and accepting more of the packaging that our customers may be unable to recycle at home, we are helping our customers reduce plastic waste.

‘We’ll listen to feedback from our colleagues and customers before we roll out the flexible plastic packaging recycling scheme wider.

‘As we work to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic packaging, we’ll continue to find collaborations, working with our suppliers, academics and organisations such as WRAP to explore innovative ways to reduce and recycle more of our packaging.’

Dr David Moon, head of business collaboration at WRAP, said: ‘We welcome Sainsbury’s trials of polypropylene film recycling in stores across so many locations in the North East. Developing solutions to overcome the challenge of recycling flexible plastic packaging is a priority for The UK Plastics Pact. Collection points for films at these Sainsbury’s stores is an important step in the right direction, building on their trials of polyethylene film collections.

‘We need all supermarkets to collect all plastic films, adopt consistent messaging and share their insights to make this work. WRAP urges other retailers to ensure that flexible plastic packaging can be easily collected for recycling throughout the UK.’

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