Tesco moves to scrap plastic-wrapped tinned multipacks
Tesco Ireland has unveiled its latest initiative in the race against waste, to eliminate plastic wrapping on tinned product multipacks. The retail giant estimated that 1.5 million pieces of plastic, amounting to around ten tonnes of waste, will be eliminated from the environment as a result.
Print24 January 2020
Tesco Ireland has announced that it will remove plastic-wrapped multipacks, sold across its 151 stores and online, replacing them with plastic-free multibuys. Going forward, 1.5 million Tesco own-label multipacks as well as branded packs of tinned beans, tuna, soup and tinned tomatoes, will be sold without the non-recyclable plastic wrapping.
The initiative is expected to be fully in place by March 2020, whereupon such products will no longer be sold with plastic wrapping holding them together. What’s more, they will still be eligible for the same multipack prices, just without the plastic!
Tesco Ireland CEO Kari Daniels said the announcement is the latest of Tesco’s efforts to remove all unneccessary and non-recyclable plastic from stores. “As part of this work,” said Daniels, “removing plastic wrapped multipacks from every Tesco store in Ireland will bring about real change for our customers.
“We want to ensure that we never use more packaging than is needed,” she continued. “What we do use is from sustainable sources and goes on to be reused or recycled. This initiative is just one way we are working towards making that goal a reality, across our business in Ireland and in the UK.”
To complete the project in a comprehensive fashion, Tesco has partnered with Kraft Heinz, which will also be eliminating the plastic packaging on its products for Tesco.
Georgiana de Noronha, president of Kraft Heinz Northern Europe, said the company is excited to be partnering with Tesco on the project. “While we know we have more to do,” de Noronha said, “this initiative is good news for the environment, and for the millions of people who enjoy Heinz varieties every day.”
Paula Chin, sustainable materials specialist at the World Wildlife Fund, said that the WWF supports Tesco’s steps in the fight against plastic pollution. “We need to remove unnecessary single-use plastic wherever possible,” said Chin, “and stop the contamination of the natural world.
“If we want to protect nature,” Chin added, “we need more businesses to follow Tesco’s lead before we run out of time.”
As part of its 4Rs packaging strategy – Remove, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Tesco aims to remove non-recyclable and excess packaging from its business by 2025.
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