Asda is to stop providing single-use plastic carrier bags with its online grocery orders, in a move that will remove around 85 million plastic bags from production each year.
Following a successful trial period in South-West England and from its Dartford Home Shopping Centre, Asda will remove the option to have a ‘bagged’ delivery on all grocery home shopping and click & collect orders nationwide from 31st July, resulting in a saving of over 500 tonnes of plastic.
The decision makes Asda the first supermarket to eliminate single-use carrier bags* from its operations, having stopped offering single use bags in its stores in 2018. In total Asda will now produce 375 million fewer plastic bags each year.
Simon Gregg, Asda’s Vice President – Online Grocery, said: “We’re working hard to reduce avoidable plastic wherever we can – because helping to reduce its impact on the environment matters to us, and we know it matters to our customers too. This is a simple change, but will have a significant impact on the amount of plastic we use as a business.”
To help shoppers with the change, Asda delivery drivers will offer to unload home delivery customers’ shopping for them in a place that is convenient.
Since 2018, Asda has removed 6,500 tonnes of plastic from its own brand packaging, the equivalent weight of 600 million plastic water bottles.
*For health and safety reasons, any fresh meat or fish items will still need to be placed inside a small plastic flow bag, but Asda will be training staff to keep these to a minimum.