Supermarkets are coming under growing pressure from politicians and campaigners to reveal the amount of plastic they create, and pay more towards its safe disposal, following a Guardian investigation.
Amid mounting concern about the devastating environmental impact of plastic pollution around the globe, the Guardian revealed that the UK’s leading supermarkets create almost 1 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste every year. However, the system is shrouded in secrecy. When the Guardian asked leading retailers to reveal the exact amount of waste they are responsible for, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Asda and Lidl all refused, saying the information was “commercially sensitive”.
Mary Creagh, MP, the chair of the environmental audit committee, warned “a plastic tide is engulfing our streets, beaches and oceans” and called on the government to act. Labour’s shadow environment secretary, Sue Hayman, said: “Labour supports the calls being made for the government to change the rules so that supermarkets have to let the public know how much plastic they are producing.”
Supermarkets have to declare the amount of plastic they put on the market annually under an EU directive. But the information is kept secret. Although several major supermarkets refused to share their figures with the Guardian, two – Aldi and the Co-op – were open about the amount of plastic they put on to the market each year.
Using their data, and other publicly available market share information, environmental consultants Eunomia estimated that the top supermarkets are creating a plastic waste problem of more than 800,000 tonnes each year – well over half of all annual UK household plastic waste of 1.5 million tonnes.
Louise Edge, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said more transparency would spur positive competition among supermarkets to cut their plastic output, rewarding the companies who make an effort.
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Source: The Guardian, 18 January 2018