Black plastic will be entirely removed from the shelves of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Asda by the end of the year.
Morrisons announced last week that it had banned all black plastic, a common packaging material that is essentially unrecyclable, from its shelves while pledging to make all its packaging recyclable or compostable by 2025.
According to a new report from The Grocer, the rest of the UK’s leading supermarkets will also banish black plastic from their shelves by the end of 2019, with others following suit by the end of January 2020.
Black plastic is problematic because it contains a carbon pigment that means recycling machines which sort plastic cannot recognise it, leaving thousands of tones to be incinerated every year.
Tesco is understood to be on track to remove all black plastic from its ranges by the end of December and is “working with branded suppliers” reduce its use, while Asda has also said it will remove all black plastic by the end of 2019.
Sainsbury’s is also set to remove the unrecyclable plastic by 2020, while Waitrose stated it was “well on track” to do the same.