Huge change coming to essential Woolworths household item – and why it’s significant for the environment
There’s a huge change coming to essential homewares from Woolworths – and why it matters for the environment
A huge change to a popular household staple being trialled by a major supermarket chain is expected to help Australia’s recycling efforts.
The colored lids on Woolworths branded milk will be replaced with clear caps to increase recycling of the store’s milk bottles.
The supermarket giant started a trial of the new clear lids this week, with shoppers already noticing the change in some stores.
There’s a big change coming to supermarket shelves: Woolworths is replacing the colored lids of its supermarket milk with clear lids (pictured)
Woolworths says it plans to have the new caps on all its own milk bottles by the end of the year.
Woolworths milk bottles are sold with dark or light blue colored plastic lids.
But colored plastics are difficult to recycle into something new.
However, clear lids with caps can be recycled and can also be used to make a new milk bottle.
This small change allows 290,000 kg of material to be recycled.
Woolworths Daily Merchandise Manager Will Herron said the move was an important step in creating better forms of waste management.
“We are pleased to be the first Australian supermarket to make the switch to our own brand milk, further supporting our customers’ good recycling habits,” Mr Herron said.
‘Our customers are quite savvy, so we expect them to notice the change, but it’s important they know why their milk bottle looks a little different.’
‘This small change will lead to better recycling of millions of milk bottles when it is rolled out across our range.’
The supermarket giant (pictured) this week started testing the clear lids in some of its stores, with plans to have the lids replaced on all Woolworths branded milk bottles by the end of the year.
Chris Foley, CEO of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, praised the move.
“Small changes like this mean recycled material ends up in a wider variety of new products, and we hope more companies will follow suit,” Mr Foley said.
“This change is just one in a series that Woolworths is making behind the scenes that may not be noticeable to customers, but is piling up to make shopping more sustainable.”
Woolworths has already introduced transparent lids on its yoghurt pouch products.
Shoppers have already noticed the subtle change as colored lids are phased out as it was found to impact recycling efforts
The retailer will also add the clear caps to Woolworths brand cream and bottled water.
Australia has one of the highest levels of food waste in the world, with households responsible for generating the most food waste in the country.
Latest figures show Australians produce 76 million tonnes of waste every year.
About half of the waste is recycled, while 27 percent goes to landfill.