Retailers across the UK are taking steps toward making the ideal of a sustainable future a reality, most recently with supermarket giant Sainsbury’s eliminating plastic bags for fruit and vegetables at two of its stores.
For now, it is trialing offering reusable drawstring bags for purchase instead.
At select locations, customers can choose to use their own containers or buy a bag for less than US$.50 from recycled materials, says BBC News.
The supermarket says that it wants to remove plastic bags from all of its shops by September.
Meanwhile, its rivals are already introducing measures to minimize plastic waste, reports the publication.
Morrisons has started selling fresh produce in paper bags and Tesco has removed all polystyrene from its fish packaging.
Last month Waitrose started a trial removing plastic from flowers and plants and offering more loose fruit and vegetables.
Scott Ward, a Sainsbury’s store manager, comments that the eco-friendly trend is in response to customer demand.
Sainsbury’s was rated the worst UK supermarket for its use of plastic, according to a Greenpeace UK survey.
In a November 2018 report by the environmental campaign group, Sainsbury’s scored the lowest marks out of 10 UK supermarkets for reducing single-use plastics and non-recyclable plastics.
Louise Edge, from Greenpeace, says she is glad Sainsbury’s is trialing reusable bags but urges the retailer to do more.
“But if Sainsbury’s wants to move from the bottom of our supermarket league table, it will need to cut much more plastic over the next year,” the publication quotes her saying.
