Published on Apr 27 2018 10:00 AM in Retail tagged: UK / Waitrose / plastic bag levy / Plastic Waste
Waitrose has also cleaned nearly 500 beaches and rivers across England since July 2017 as part of its ‘Waitrose Beach and River Clean-Up’ initiative.
The retailer has previously taken several steps to tackle plastic waste. In September 2016 it became the first supermarket to stop selling items containing microbeads and exclusively sells paper stem cotton buds.
The retailer’s cafés offer non-plastic crockery and all drinks stirrers are made out of wood.
It has also recently committed to making all of its private-label packaging widely recyclable, reusable, or home compostable by 2025. Since 2009 it has reduced its overall packaging by nearly 50% and 80% of its packaging is widely recyclable and at the beginning of 2018, it pledged to phase out black plastic packaging by 2019.
The supermarket will remove all takeaway disposable coffee cups from its shops by autumn 2018, saving more than 52 million cups a year.