Tesco is introducing new clear caps to milk bottles in a drive to make it easier for customers to recycle at home.
The change will see Tesco’s own brand blue, red and green milk caps switched to a clear alternative, enabling the cap to be recycled.
Currently coloured caps need to be processed separately from clear packaging – with the change, which will be enforced across 4 pint, 2 pint and 1 pint bottles of milk, meaning that every year an extra 3,900 tonnes of plastic can go into making new bottles.
Skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole milk options will continue to be fully identifiable via coloured block labels around the bottle.
The moves comes alongside other sustainability-focused moves from the retailer, such as a trial of fresh mince ‘pillow packs’ which use 70% less plastic.
Since the launch of its 4Rs sustainability strategy Tesco has removed 200+ million bags from Tesco.com, as well as 33 million extra lids from products like wipes creams and yoghurts, all of which have helped the Big 4 grocer remove 2.2 billion tonnes of plastic from its stores to date.
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Tesco dairy category James Waddy said: “Ensuring our packaging is as sustainable as possible is really important to us, and customer feedback on our trial of these new clear milk caps has been overwhelmingly positive.”
“We will continue to look for ways to improve the packaging of our products and make it even easier for customers to recycle at home”
It follows similar switches from retailers like Aldi, and brands including Arla and Muller.
It comes as the sector is under pressure to make changes following concern around the impact of plastic pollution, with research earlier this year finding that there are more than 170 trillion tonnes of plastic in the world’s oceans.
