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Article

17 Jan 2018

Author:
Sandra Laville and Matthew Taylor, The Guardian (UK)

Supermarkets refuse to share plastic footprint, says Guardian amid growing health concerns over plastic found in tap water

As concern over the scale of unnecessary plastic waste grows, the Guardian asked Britain’s eight leading supermarkets to explain how much plastic packaging they sell to consumers and whether they would commit to a plastic-free aisle in their stores.

The chains have to declare the amount of plastic they put on the market annually under an EU directive. But the information is kept secret, and Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Asda and Lidl all refused the Guardian’s request, with most saying the information was “commercially sensitive”...

Only two supermarkets, Aldi and the Co-op, were open about the amount of plastic packaging they put on to the market...

The six supermarkets which refused to provide figures on how much plastic packaging they put onto the market annually referred the Guardian to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The BRC said general packaging information was available on the NPWD... and [that] [s]everal BRC members have ambitious internal targets around recyclable packaging, and retailers, investing with their suppliers, are pioneering a number of initiatives that could make a significant difference to the recyclability of packaging and use of recycled material...”