Through product innovation and redesign, Asda has reduced plastic from 1000 product lines including fresh fruit and veg and electronics.

This is the equivalent weight of 600m empty plastic bottles.

Changes include changing pizza bases from non-recyclable polystyrene to fully recyclable cardboard, swapping chilled ready meal trays from black plastic to foil and replacing 5 million plastic bags on its bedding range with a cardboard band.

All of Asda’s fresh product trays have been changed from black plastic to clear in order to reach its aim of 100% recyclable packaging by 2025.

Roger Burnley, president and CEO of Asda, said: “Making changes of this scale in a business of this size is never easy, but I was clear last year that we needed to take a root and branch review of what packaging we use for our products.

“In many cases packaging is still essential to protect against waste, but avoiding the use of unnecessary plastic will rightly be the starting point for all of our packaging designs in future.”

The supermarket is currently working with Leeds Beckett University to develop alternative packaging materials and will publish its first report later this year.

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