Iceland will no longer package bunches of bananas in plastic and will instead hold them together with bands of paper, in a move it claims will save 10 million bags of plastic a year.
The bananas will now be packaged in a paper band which is recyclable and made from recycled paper. The bananas will be the first product in any major UK supermarket to bear the ‘Plastic Free Trust’ mark, launched by A Plastic Planet earlier this year to show consumers if a product is free from plastic.
Iceland has spent the last few years evolving its image into a supermarket that’s at the forefront of the war against plastic.
It has pledged to strip out all plastics from its own label brand by 2023 and has already made a number of other changes, as HuffPost UK recently reported.
“People have become so used to buying their products wrapped in plastic, or indeed using plastic bags for loose produce, and this has to stop if we are to turn down the tap on plastics,“Richard Walker, Iceland’s Managing Director, said.
It isn’t the only company to make changes. Carlsberg announced last week it would ditch the plastic can holder on packs of beer and replace it with recyclable glue.
Marks and Spencer will stop giving out plastic knives and forks in stores from this week, replacing them with wooden alternatives, and Morrisons is bringing back traditional brown paper bags for loose fresh fruit and veg.