TESCO is making a big change to an everyday essential – but shoppers will be divided.
The UK’s biggest supermarket has announced it is removing coloured caps from all its own-brand milk bottles.
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The retailer joins Lidl, Asda, Aldi, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s in implementing the move in a bid to help the environment.
Tesco said the change will impact over 425 million bottles of milk, with coloured caps being removed from four, two and one pinters.
The new caps can be recycled back into milk bottles which the retailer said will see an extra 3,900 tonnes of plastic recycled.
Customers will still be able to distinguish between different types of milk – full fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed – as the bottles will feature coloured blocks.
James Waddy, category director for Dairy at Tesco, 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.”
But the move may leave shoppers divided, based on reactions from those whose local supermarket has already made the change.
Customers have griped previously that a “simple glance down the fridge normally, now requires removal of bottles to check”.
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Lidl started rolling out the change from October 31 last year while Waitrose announced it was scrapping coloured caps last June.
In February, Sainsbury’s said it would implement the same change across all its stores with immediate effect.
Co-op removed all coloured milk bottle lids from its shelves in November in favour of clear caps as well.
German retailer Aldi has also removed coloured caps from its milk bottles.
But companies aren’t just removing coloured caps from milk to reduce plastic usage.
In November last year, McDonald’s introduced recyclable pressed-paper knives, forks and spoons.
The fast food chain said it hoped the change would eliminate a staggering 858 metric tonnes of plastic across the UK every year.
Sainsbury’s recently ditched single-use plastic trays from its whole chicken range too.
Meanwhile, the company now vacuum packs all of its beef mince which uses at least 55% less plastic.
And in 2019, it removed plastic bags on fruit and veg in stores.
Shoppers now have to bring in their own containers or buy a reusable drawstring bag for 30p.
Most supermarkets have also scrapped best before dates on many fruit and veg items in a bid to reduce food wastage.
Meanwhile, some retailers have ditched use-by dates on milk to reduce waste, including M&S and Morrisons.
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