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Iceland
Frozen meals retailer Iceland has printed its personal “plastic footprint” and is looking on different grocery chains to do the identical.
It says higher transparency over how a lot plastic is utilized in packaging and transporting meals will result in a discount in plastic waste.
All main chains are reducing again on plastics use.
However Iceland is asking the federal government to make reporting on such use obligatory and to set targets for its discount.
The chain used 32,000 tonnes of plastic in 2019.
“With out transparency, and authorities enforced discount targets, we won’t be able to guage whether or not enterprise actions are delivering actual progress,” mentioned Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland.
Supermarkets have come underneath elevated strain lately to scale back plastic use. Shopper consciousness of the environmental impression of discarded packaging has risen sharply, partly because of the “Blue Planet impact” after a BBC tv collection highlighted plastic air pollution within the oceans.
All the big chains have made pledges and a few strikes to scale back plastic: Morrisons is introducing paper luggage for consumers in its shops, Sainsbury’s eliminated plastic luggage for its free contemporary produce final yr, and Tesco mentioned it might cease utilizing plastic luggage for its on-line deliveries.
Nevertheless Mr Walker criticised rival corporations for misrepresenting their strikes to turn out to be extra sustainable.
“For a number of years now, companies have been utilizing incomplete info to characterize the dimensions of their plastic packaging, their commitments to vary, and the progress being made. We’ll all be higher served by a extra correct and clear image on this problem,” he mentioned.
‘Daring transfer’
Iceland’s name for higher transparency is supported by a variety of campaigning organisations together with Buddies of the Earth and Greenpeace who mentioned if corporations have been required to publish detailed figures and hit targets it might power them to sort out the issue.
“UK supermarkets are beginning to reduce the quantity of single-use plastic packaging they produce, however we’d like them to maneuver sooner and suppose greater. The federal government could make a giant distinction by setting legally binding targets,” mentioned Greenpeace UK plastic campaigner Nina Schrank.
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Iceland
A Plastic Planet co-founder Sian Sutherland mentioned: “For years UK supermarkets have been hiding behind half-truths and incomplete information, by no means absolutely disclosing the big scale of the plastic inside their very own companies.
“This daring transfer by Iceland should rapidly be adopted by all UK retailers. If the retailers use their collective would possibly, the manufacturers will quickly must comply with and we’ll lastly see some actual plastic discount moderately than but extra pacts and pledges,” she added.
Iceland has made a dedication to eradicate all plastic packaging from its own-label merchandise by the tip of 2023 and says publishing its plastic footprint yearly will assist it obtain that objective.
It mentioned two thirds of the plastic packaging it presently makes use of is said to branded items that are outdoors its management.
Iceland itself got here in for criticism final yr after a BBC investigation revealed it nonetheless had inventory containing palm oil on its cabinets after it had claimed to have stopped promoting any own-label gadgets containing the product.
It additionally eliminated its own-label branding from some merchandise after it failed to satisfy the deadline for the elimination of palm oil from their components.
Palm oil manufacturing is accountable for the lack of giant areas of rainforest, contributing to the local weather change disaster.
