Aldi is trialling its first collection facilities for soft plastics in select stores in the North of England and East Midlands.
The supermarket is providing collection bins at 20 of its stores across Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Greater Manchester, where customers can deposit clean, soft plastic packaging.
As most local authorities do not currently collect soft plastics, the collection bins mean that shoppers can return all types of these materials – including crisp packets, salad bags, bread bags and carrier bags – regardless of where the items were purchased. Aldi said it will then work with its recycling partner to establish the best routes for the plastics to be processed.
If the trial is successful, the collection bins will be rolled out across all of Aldi’s more than 900 stores in the UK.
The trial is the latest move to reduce plastic waste by Aldi, which is also working towards all its own-label packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2022.
Richard Gorman, Plastics and Packaging Director at Aldi UK, said: “We know our customers are environmentally conscious, and as a responsible retailer, we are always striving to reduce plastic waste wherever possible. Our latest trial is another step in the right direction, as we work towards being able to offer shoppers an option to bring back to our stores problem plastic that might not be recycled by their local councils.
“We will be monitoring the trial closely, and we hope that customers utilise our collection bins so that we can look at expanding this into more stores.”
