“It’s an important commitment given the damage we all know that glitter and throwaway plastic is doing to our marine environment.”

UK’s largest supermarket chain Tesco has scrapped 20m pieces of single-use plastic from its Christmas range this year in an effort to tackle plastic pollution.

The move is part of its pledge towards removing 1 billion pieces of plastic by the end of 2020.

According to the world’s third largest retailer, it has saved more than 14m pieces from its seasonal range by making its own-label crackers plastic-free.

It has also removed a layer of plastic packaging from its Christmas puddings and sponges, eliminating the use of more than 1.78m pieces of plastic.

Additionally, the retailer has ensured all single-use products and packaging can be easily recycled by keeping all wrapping paper, gift bags, cards and crackers glitter-free.

‘Sustainable celebrations’

 “It is an absolute priority of ours to remove and reduce the amount of plastic in our stores to the minimum and ensure everything we use is recycled and kept out of the environment,” Tesco’s quality director, Sarah Bradbury, said.

 “Christmas time is no exception and we want to do our bit to help customers have more sustainable celebrations.”

The single-use plastic menace has been growing and this in turn has been having a serious impact on the environment.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace called on the UK Government to get supermarkets to halve the amount of single-use plastic by 2025.

The government will also levy a new tax on plastic packaging that fails to meet a minimum threshold of at least 30% recycled content by 2022.

‘Important commitment’

Greenpeace UK’s plastics campaigner, Nina Schrank, said: “This is great news from Tesco, and it’s an important commitment given the damage we all know that glitter and throwaway plastic is doing to our marine environment.

“Now we want to see Tesco go even further and show even greater ambition, by setting market-leading targets for reuse and refill systems both in store and online across as much of their range as possible.”

Plastic reducing initiatives

Major retailers including Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Iceland have also shown ‘promising’ efforts by introducing seasonal products that use less or no single-use plastic.

Asda recently launched its first sustainable Christmas including glitter-free cards, wrap and gift bags. The move will reportedly save 66 tonnes of plastic this year.

Iceland’s ‘plastic-free Christmas range’ will have more plastic-free Christmas lines within the range this year.

Morrisons has eliminated glitter from all of its own-brand ranges including cards, crackers, wrapping paper, present bags, flowers, plants and wreaths while John Lewis and Waitrose have stopped selling Christmas crackers containing plastic toys and puzzles, 

Marks & Spencer has removed black plastic packaging for its festive puddings to ensure all of its packaging is recyclable by 2022.

• Read: Lidl to reduce its own-label plastic packaging by 40% by 2025

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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