Sainsbury’s goes TRAYLESS on whole chickens in change that will save 10M pieces of plastic a year
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Sainsbury’s goes TRAYLESS on whole chickens in change that will save over 10 MILLION pieces of plastic a year
- Five products are changing: the whole chickens in the ‘by Sainsbury’s’ range
- The plastic tray has been replaced by recyclable foil packaging
If you’re planning on cooking a roast chicken over Easter weekend, you might be in for a surprise while grocery shopping.
Sainsbury’s has announced that the ‘by Sainsbury’s’ range of chicken is now trayless.
The retailer is removing the single-use plastic containers from the packaging, in a change that it says will save more than 10 million pieces of plastic per year.
To put that into perspective, that’s the equivalent of 140 tons — 20 times the weight of an elephant — of plastic per year.
‘The trayless products are available in all stores in the UK and online, reducing the amount of single-use plastic that customers have to dispose of at home,’ explains the retail giant.
If you’re planning on cooking a roast chicken over Easter weekend, you might be in for a surprise while grocery shopping. Sainsbury’s has announced that the ‘by Sainsbury’s’ range of chicken is now trayless
Five products are affected by the change – the XS, S, M, L and XL whole chickens in the ‘by Sainsbury’s’ range.
The plastic bin has been replaced with foil packaging, which can be recycled at one of Sainsbury’s recycling points located at the front of the store.
In 2019, Sainsbury’s pledged to halve its plastic packaging by 2025 by introducing refillable boxes and bottles for everything from milk to cereals, pasta and laundry detergent.
CEO Mike Coupe said at the time: ‘Reducing plastic and packaging is not easy.
‘Packaging plays a vital role in keeping our food safe and fresh and minimizing food waste.
“We therefore need to find alternatives to plastic that protect the quality of our food while minimizing our impact on the environment.”
Since then, Sainsbury’s has taken several measures to reduce the use of plastic.
This includes removing the plastic lids from the dip pots, replacing the plastic used in the two-gallon own-brand ice cream tubs, and removing the plastic wrap from the broccoli.
The news comes shortly after a new study shed new light on the shocking magnitude of the global plastics crisis.
Researchers have found that there are as many as 4.9 million tons of plastic waste floating in our oceans – an “unprecedented increase” since 2005.
And without immediate action, they predict that the rate at which plastics enter our waters will increase as much as 2.6 times by 2040.
βThis is a clear warning that we need to act now on a global scale,β said Marcus Eriksen, co-founder and researcher of The 5 Gyres Institute.
βWe need a strong, legally binding UN global treaty against plastic pollution that tackles the problem at source.β
The plastic tray (stock image) has been replaced with foil packs, which can be recycled at one of Sainsbury’s recycling points located at the front of the store