So I’m back to share something I received from Tescos regarding their mission towards reducing and emitting plastic. I had written to them after receiving a home delivery where there was sooo much plastic packaging I couldn’t not do so.

Other supermarket chains have recently made headlines regarding their stoppage of packing fruit and veg in plastic, and I wrongly concluded that Tescos obviously couldn’t be bothered as I am always wallowing in the stuff. I really am keen to shop around to purchase goods that are not covered in plastic and was seriously considering changing my weekly home delivery to another retailer thinking they obviously were lagging behind, but here is their answer and it is quite encouraging… I thought it only fair I should share it. And do read the link.

‘Hi Debbie,
We have not been as forthcoming with the changes we have made as I feel we should have been, to better let our customers know what we intend to do and have done already, this does allow me to share this with you.
First of all you can read more about it here https://sustainability.tescoplc.com/sustainability/packaging/our-position/ it covers it in a bit more depth than I will here but I can give a general sense.
I know that seeing all the plastic in store makes it seem like we are doing nothing, that we don’t care but that is untrue. We have already made massive changes by cutting, changing and redesigning plastic getting rid of it wherever we can and replacing what we can’t with recyclable plastic. Already we have stopped over 1 kiloton form plastic from entering the supply chain and over 78% of the packaging on all our own brand products is recyclable.
We are also working with local councils to improve recycling infrastructure to cope with the increasing demand and this is just our long terms. We also run trials to see what more immediate changes we can make to improve, two recent examples are the removal of plastic packaging form our loose fruit and veg, the results of which are being reviewed and if successful it can be rolled out to more stores. The other is trialing in store soft plastic recycling points, this allows our customers to recycle otherwise non recyclable plastic such as film and crisp packets.
I know that we still have a ways to go and we are working with our suppliers across the globe to make these improvements on a truly large scale and not simply make a token change publicly as we truly believe in changing with our customers for the planet and I hope I have helped show that we are not idle.
Customer Care’.

In future blogs I shall share some of the changes I have made at home to consciously cut down on purchasing goods made from not-so-fantastic-plastic.

Be the change that you wish to see in the world…