Tesco have finally done what we hoped the supermarkets would do. And where one goes hopefully others will follow!

Recycling plastics is something many of us try to do. We wade through all the different symbols and instructions on packaging and do our best to recycle where we can. But there are still quite a lot of items that take more effort to recycle because the label says something like “Recycle at large stores”. Sometimes it’s really unclear what that means so it gets put in the non-recyclable bin!! It’s such a shame.

One of the biggest single items of packaging that is totally recyclable but rarely collected in your domestic recycling by the local binmen is bread bags! Most of the big brand bread comes in a polyethylene plastic bag. These are the bags that are kind of soft and quiet when you screw them up, not noisy and crinkly. They also stay fairly well screwed up when you let go rather than popping straight back to nearly their original shape.

Thank you Tesco – you have seen the light and are promoting the fact that these bread bags are 100% recyclable (as is the tape that seals them) and now there is a place to recycle them. This approach works hand in hand with their drive to reduce unnecessary food packaging generally. But of course there are always items which would create greater food waste by changing to non-plastic packaging and bread certainly falls into this category. Non-plastic packaging for bread means the bread can go staler much faster, increasing the chance it will be wasted and thrown away. Bread is already one of the single biggest items of food waste. Food waste contributes to global warming as much if not more than plastic waste. That’s why we advocate recyclable plastic packaging for bread, that can be collected and recycled.