UK supermarkets are worst in Europe when it comes to unnecessary plastic packaging, a new report has found, stating that they add up to 29.8 billion pieces of avoidable plastic waste every year.
According to an analysis by Retail Economics and the packaging company DS Smith, UK ranks as top offender in terms of excess plastic packaging among six European countries with worst offenders in British shopping baskets being processed foods such as ready meals, breads and other carbohydrates, and dairy products.
More than 80 per cent of products in these categories came wrapped in plastic.
Josh Holmes, a senior consultant at Retail Economics who worked on the report, said that mushrooms, broccoli and oranges were examples of items wrapped in plastic that did not need to be.
Britons’ love for fast food was also an issue, he said, “UK consumers spend a lot on ready meals and processed foods, more than other European markets.”
In the UK, 70 per cent of the products in the study were wrapped in plastic. Of this packaging, 51 per cent was deemed replaceable by more sustainable packaging or removable entirely.
France had the lowest plastic usage of the countries studied, using it in less than 60 per cent of products in an average grocery basket. This difference largely attributable to a crackdown on unnecessary fruit and vegetable packaging. A phased ban on plastic-wrapping fresh fruits and vegetables was introduced in 2022 for 30 products, including cucumbers, lemons and oranges.
As a result, only 44 per cent of supermarket fruits and vegetables in France had plastic packaging, compared with 78 per cent in the UK.
Holmes said, “When you go to countries like France or Spain, there’s a lot more fresh deli counters where food essentially is unpackaged, whereas a lot of the supermarkets in the UK have been cutting back on fresh counters for cost cutting and efficiency reasons.”
Labour’s manifesto for the election promised that the new government would be “committed to reducing waste by moving to a circular economy”.
Urging the UK government to create regulation to help businesses replace plastic more quickly, Miles Roberts, chief executive at DS Smith, said, “We think government can and should be more demanding of us all — phasing out certain plastics to help create a level playing field that encourages innovation, investment, and generates healthy competition to replace plastic."
Meanwhile, Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said that retailers were generally on board with reducing plastic packaging.
“The report shows that many already have plans to increase their investment into packaging alternatives within the next 12 months,” Opie said. “A new levy on packaging next year will further stimulate packaging reduction and provide local authorities with £1 billion of new money to invest in recycling.”
