Co-Op introduces new compostable carriers as part of new plastics strategy

The Co-Op has announced it is phasing out single-use plastics across its stores, replacing them with more environmentally friendly and recyclable alternatives.

As part of a new ethical strategy to be launched later this week, the retailer says it aims to reduce its overall use of plastic within five years.

The Co-op’s pledge on plastic will see all its own-brand packaging become easy to recycle by 2023, so it is no longer ‘single-use’.

It has promised to use a minimum of 50 per cent recycled plastic in bottles, pots, trays and punnets by 2021 and will stop using black and dark plastic packaging, including black ready meal trays, for its own-brand products by 2020.

As part of the strategy it is introducing lightweight compostable carrier bags, which it says customers can use to carry shopping home and then be re-used as food waste caddy liners.

The new bags will substitute standard plastic single-use carriers with fully certified compostable carriers of the same size and strength at 5p.

The bags will be rolled out to almost 1,400 Co-op food stores, initially in towns, cities and villages where the bags are accepted in food waste collections.

Jo Whitfield, Retail Chief Executive at Co-op, said the bags are “a simple but ingenious way to provide an environmentally-friendly alternative” to single-use plastic shopping bags.

She said the Co-Op has created “a recipe for sustainability to source responsibly, treat people with fairness and produce products which have minimal impact on the planet,” with its new ethical strategy.

The strategy, entitled ‘Future of Food’, will be unveiled at a supplier conference on Thursday 27 September 2018.