Is recycling safe from the UK culture wars?
The UK’s culture wars are a bit like quicksand – once something falls in, it can be almost impossible to drag it away. These partisan battlegrounds rarely explore the complexities of the issues they latch on to, with environmental debates often centre-stage. But recycling seems to be different. For now, at least, recycling has no enemies. Why is this so and will this continue to be the case?
Starbucks to open sustainability learning and innovation lab
Starbucks has announced plans to develop a new sustainability learning and innovation lab at Hacienda Alsacia, in Costa Rica – the company’s global agronomy headquarters for research and development. The lab will serve as a learning hub for employees, students, researchers and industry leaders to innovate and scale sustainable solutions for issues including climate adaption and agricultural economics.
Westpak are ‘Highly Commended’ at the 2023 Footprint Awards
Westpak Group Ltd have been recognised as ‘Highly Commended’ for the ‘Innovations in packaging’ award at the 2023 Footprint Awards. Taking place on the 8th June at the at the RIBA headquarters in London, the awards ceremony celebrated the foodservice and hospitality sector’s leading responsible business initiatives across a total of 12 prestigious award categories.
M&S removes ‘use by’ dates on RSPCA Assured fresh milk
Marks & Spencer has removed ‘Use By’ dates across its RSPCA Assured Select Farms British and organic fresh milk as part of its commitment to halving food waste by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2040. The change, which is being rolled out across all M&S UK stores, will see ‘Use By’ dates on fresh milk replaced with ‘Best Before’ dates.
Asda replaces coloured milk bottle tops to recycle over 200 million pieces of plastic a year
Asda has announced that it will replace coloured caps with clear caps on all its own label fresh milk, including skimmed, semi-skimmed, whole, organic, and filtered milk.
Tesco removes two billion pieces of plastic from its business
Tesco has confirmed it has now removed more than two billion pieces of plastic from its UK business since the launch of its 4Rs packaging strategy in 2019 (‘Remove, Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’). In the last 12 months, the supermarket has identified and removed 500 million pieces of unnecessary plastic.
Tesco to go peat-free on UK-grown bedding plants and compost in major carbon-saving move
Tesco will become the first UK retailer to go peat-free on its British-grown bedding plants, in order to significantly lower their carbon footprint. From earlier this year the supermarket started selling only compost that is also completely peat-free.
Vital new collaboration will drive action on cutting climate impact of UK food and drink
With estimates that food and drink consumed in the UK is responsible for around 35% of our territorial emissions, climate action NGO WRAP and WWF-UK have joined forces with eight of the UK’s largest retailers to standardise measurement and reporting of GHG emissions from food and drink.
Westpak’s sustainable packaging shown across Waitrose & Partners Duchy Organic refresh
Westpak have frequently worked alongside Waitrose & Partners, supplying sustainable packaging for numerous fresh produce lines. Recently, several core pieces of our supplied packaging have been featured in-store as part of the supermarket’s ‘Duchy Organic’ range, including microflute kiwi and grape punnets.
Has ‘sustainability’ become a packaging cliché?
‘Sustainability’ has become a major component of the consumer mindset throughout the foodservice packaging industries and beyond. The downside to this rapid increase in awareness has become clear, with the market being flooded with clichéd terminology and near-meaningless declarations of environmentalism. Large amounts of sustainability terminology are in danger of not just being misleading, but losing meaning altogether.
