UK supermarket chain Morrisons has completely cut expanded polystyrene packaging from its own-brand products, swapping it with cardboard and recyclable plastic trays made from recycled bottles.
Morrisons previously used polystyrene packaging at its fresh food counters for pizza, meat and fish products, and frozen foods but stopped using it as the material is not biodegradable and recyclable via kerbside bin collections.
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The supermarket said that the move will prevent 600 tonnes of polystyrene from being used. Morrisons used approximately 90 million pizza, meat and fish trays last year.
Environmentally-friendly labels, such as the ‘rinse and recycle’ message will be added to products to show customers what can be recycled.
Morrisons packaging manager Natasha Cook said: “Polystyrene is a particularly difficult material to recycle so we wanted to take it out of our products quickly.
“Taking plastic out of the environment remains one of our customers’ most pressing concerns so we continue to remove unnecessary plastic packaging or make it more recyclable.”
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By GlobalDataThe news follows other environmental moves by the supermarket, including its paper grocery bag trial and reverse vending machine trial to recycle single-use plastic bottles.
As an original signatory of the WRAP UK Plastics Pact, Morrisons has committed to making all its own-brand plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
