Iceland's Plastic - Free Pledge on all it's own label products 16 January 2018 at 9:21AM in Food shopping & groceries 4 replies 1.2K views

fredandwilma

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42692642

https://news.sky.com/story/supermarket-iceland-vows-to-ditch-plastic-from-its-stores-in-five-years-11209621

Take their ready meals. They are in a board carton sleeve which is good, made of paper, but the problem is the black plastic tray.

They going to replace that with a wooden board tray, and the final piece of the jigsaw is the plastic film over the top: They are looking at cellulose-based technologies which are made from paper pulp.

Some within the plastics industry think it's a step too far and are questioning how "green" the move really is.

The reason a lot of supermarkets embraced plastics packaging is because it's resource efficient.

If they move away from plastics in the way that they've declared, it will mean that the weight of the packaging they use will increase four times, the carbon emissions will increase by around three times, the amount of energy to make that packaging will increase two-fold.

The net result is that the environmental footprint of the packaging that they're including, will increase.

It seems we have gone full circle when it comes to packaging?

We'll be using paper and glass bottles again, before long?

jon81uk

I think returnable glass bottles would be a good thing in theory, but its the cost of collection and the fuel/emissions of doing so.

I also have reservations about Icelands mission to remove plastic. Sometimes it is the easiest, lightest most simplest to distribute solution. Getting more expensive items, that use more energy to produce and are heavier to ship is not the right solution.

But putting oven chips in boxes instead of bags might work well, similarly removing plastic trays where they aren't needed (like the Greggs products at Iceland, a cardboard tray would work just as well). But for ready meals that are heated in their tray its going to be harder to get a simple replacement.

unforeseen

I think that there is a danger that although you have foodstuffs packaged in cardboardit then needs plasticising to make it waterproof.

System

What about bags of veg?
Ice cream can return in the blocks

fredandwilma

A call for evidence on how to reduce the use of single-use plastics will begin next month. Recyclable paper bags for fruit and veg? I see a return of the string bag. Maybe i should start manufacturing them, now? My parents always used string bags for shopping. :rotfl:

Found these: https://www.turtlebags.co.uk/

£5 - Not a bad price.


https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-calls-for-fruit-and-veg-to-be-sold-without-plastic-packaging-11202929

https://news.sky.com/story/eu-pledges-to-make-all-plastic-packaging-recyclable-by-2030-11210035


Did anyone have a 'pop' man? The highlight of the week was when the 'pop' man called. Glass bottles were returned to the 'pop' man after use.