Tesco, Kellogg and the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE UK) have launched a five-month trial to collect cartons at in-store recycling points.
The pilot is part of Tesco’s 4R plan for packaging, Remove, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and builds on ACE UK’s national carton bring bank network.
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Under this partnership, carton recycling points will be introduced into 11 Tesco stores in England and Wales to test how customers’ awareness on returning packaging to stores for recycling.
Tesco packaging head James Bull said: “We are overhauling our packaging by removing unnecessary and non-recyclable packaging from our business and will make sure everything we use can be recycled continuously.
“Inconsistency in the UK’s recycling infrastructure remains a problem and it is vital that the Government quickly implements its plans for collection across councils. In the meantime, we will test new in-store recycling facilities for packaging such as cartons to see if we can improve recycling rates.”
Additionally, the new carton recycling points can be leveraged as a short-term recycling solution for Pringles.
Pringles owner Kellogg is working to improve the recyclability of the Pringles tube to make it recyclable in household collections. It is also testing a ‘widely recyclable’ paper packaging solution.
Kellogg UK managing director Chris Silcock said: “We know people want to be able to recycle their Pringles tubes. This trial will allow our shoppers to return them to be recycled into something new and is an important step to help us assess the success of in-store collection for Pringles.”
Kellogg commits to make all of its packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.
In July this year, Tesco partnered with TerraCycle waste management subsidiary Loop to launch a trial that delivers products in reusable packaging.
