Sainsbury’s has become the first UK supermarket to replace the plastic packaging on its own-brand kitchen towels and toilet rolls with a paper version.
The supermarket said the move was the biggest plastics reduction it had made in its grocery business so far, saving around 485 tonnes of plastic each year.
The paper packaging will launch across 27 products in-store and online from this week. Sainsbury’s will complete the switch across all its lines by February next year.
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Director of product and innovation Claire Hughes said: “We sell thousands of our own brand toilet tissue and kitchen roll products every week and by switching from plastic to paper on these household staples, we’re able to make a significant impact in reducing plastic.
“This change alone represents the biggest plastic reduction in our grocery products so far and our customers can expect many more changes to come.
“Collaborating with our suppliers to develop innovative packaging solutions to reduce plastic is a major key priority for Sainsbury’s, helping us to achieve our ambitious target of increasing recycled content and recyclability.”
The supermarket announced in July that it had cut the cost of its own brand toilet paper and kitchen towels, passing £4m in savings directly on to customers as the price of pulp continues to fall.
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3 Comments. Leave new
Anyone else remember just a few years ago when we had vague concerns about how many trees we were felling? Just me? Oh well, let’s just make everything paper now eh.
It’s not an “innovative packaging solution” they could have just looked in the Sainsbury’s Archives to see they were wrapped in the paper in the past, they were like that in the 90’s when I worked there as was Andrex. As for Chris above he must not have heard that paper is much more recyclable than thin plastics and the wood for these comes from renewable forests that are great for absorbing carbon.
I remember working in Sainsbury’s when toilet roll was in paper. Customers used to put their thumbs through when picking up. We used to have loads of split packages for reductions. I can see this happening again.