Don't fret, this old softie hasn't suddenly turned into an an all-guns-ablazing activist overnight but I have come across some good news that will help householders across the country quietly join the move towards a more active zero waste lifestyle.
Reported in this week's LetsRecycle bulletin is the news that the UK's key supermarkets (Asda; The Co-operative Group; WM Morrison; J Sainsbury’s; Tesco; and Waitrose) are officially accepting thin plastic film packaging through their existing in-store bag recycling facilities.
This won't be a new idea to some as several supermarkets have been doing this already, but it is welcome news that this recycling facility is now officially being rolled out at more than 4500 stores across the UK, providing customers with a place to leave packaging such as cereal bags, toilet roll packaging and multi-can wrappers.
What really struck me about the value of collecting back these materials was that according to LetsRecycle, this type of plastic makes up 43% of all plastic household packaging, weighing in at 645,000 tonnes each year. Plastic bottles make up only 32%, or 480,000 tonnes, by comparison. Wowsers! It just goes to show how much there is knocking around this planet of hours and that's a lot of plastic that would otherwise go to waste if it is simply dumped in the rubbish bin.
Of course, much of this packaging can be reduced at source or reused at home (e.g. bread bags being repurposed as sandwich wrappers, and loo roll bags doubling up as bin bags), but much of it can now go back to the supermarket to be reprocessed. To find out more information about this scheme and the on-pack recycling label that underpins it, visit Caelia Quinault's article at LetsRecycle.com Supermarkets take back plastic film in-store. Oh....and tell your friends. Well there's no point in keeping news like this to ourselves is there.
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