Nestlé has announced that it is reducing the plastic packaging used in its confectionery sharing bags on sale in the UK and Ireland by 15% on average.
The move will see around 83 tonnes of virgin plastic taken out of the firm's supply chain every year, with products such as Milkybar, Aero Bubbles, Munchies, Rolo, Yorkie, and Rowntree’s Randoms now packaged in narrower pouches.
Nestlé sells approximately 140 million confectionery sharing bags in the UK and Ireland every year, and according to the firm, the move will save close to one million square metres of packaging per year.
Plastic Reduction
“Nestlé is working hard to reduce its use of virgin plastic by one third by 2025," commented Cheryl Allen, head of sustainability at Nestlé Confectionery. "Removing 15 per cent of the packaging from our sharing bags is an important step towards this goal. The move will not only save on the amount of virgin plastic we use each year, it will have significant benefits throughout our supply chain in the UK and Ireland.
“For example, we can now pack more sharing bags at a time, which means fewer lorries are needed to transport them. In total, we will be able to take the equivalent of 331 lorries off UK roads every year, saving 71472 road miles and 130 tonnes of CO2 emissions.”
Nestlé is also seeking to make it easier to recycle plastic wrappers that are not collected in kerbside collections, through a partnership with TerraCycle, through which flexible plastic packaging can be dropped off at around 300 TerraCycle recycling points across the UK and Ireland.
© 2021 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click sign up to subscribe to Checkout.
