42 companies pledge to cut UK plastic pollution
According to Reuters, 42 companies, including Britain’s biggest supermarkets, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble, have committed to cut plastic use over the next seven years.
According to Reuters, 42 companies, including Britain’s biggest supermarkets, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble, have committed to cut plastic use over the next seven years. The companies have promised to hit a target by 2025 to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic packaging in the United Kingdom. Signing on to the UK Plastics Pact, launched in April by sustainability campaign group WRAP, they have pledged that 100% of plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by that date.
Other targets are that 70% of plastic packaging is effectively recycled or composted, and that all plastic packaging will have 30% average recycled content. The 42 Plastic Pact companies are responsible for more than 80% of the plastic packaging on products sold through UK supermarkets, according to WRAP.
In January, privately owned Iceland, a British supermarket, promised to eliminate plastic packaging from all of its own brand products and called on the industry to follow its lead. Tesco had already committed to making all packaging fully recyclable or compostable by 2025 and is targeting a halving of packaging weight by the same date compared to 2007 levels. Sainsbury’s has reduced its own brand packaging by 35% since 2005 and is targeting a 50% reduction by 2020.