Asda has announced that it will stop providing single-use plastic carrier bags with its online grocery orders, a move that it claims will result in a saving of over 500 tonnes of plastic.
Following a trial period in South-West England and from its Dartford Home Shopping Centre, Asda will remove the option to have a ‘bagged’ delivery on all grocery home shopping and click & collect orders nationwide from 31 July.
Asda stated that the decision makes it the first supermarket to eliminate single-use carrier bags from its operations, having stopped offering single use bags in its stores in 2018. In total, Asda will now produce 375 million fewer plastic bags each year.
Simon Gregg, Asda’s Vice President – Online Grocery, said: “We’re working hard to reduce avoidable plastic wherever we can – because helping to reduce its impact on the environment matters to us, and we know it matters to our customers too. This is a simple change, but will have a significant impact on the amount of plastic we use as a business.”
To help shoppers with the change, Asda’s delivery drivers will offer to unload home delivery order for customers.
As with other supermarkets, Asda has been working to reduce plastic waste. Since 2018, it has removed 6,500 tonnes of plastic from its own brand packaging.
