“Update from Coles on plastic and packaging
Thanks for all your feedback about plastic packaging which has been passed onto us here at Coles.
We are mindful of the need to minimise our waste and over the past five years we’ve been making good progress to improve our recycling rate which has increased to 70% this year. We expect this trend to continue as we continue to work with the waste industry on new technology that can recycle more of our waste as well as consumer waste.
We are also helping our customers with their waste by providing recycling solutions. Hopefully, you’ve heard about our soft plastics recycling program with RED Group that’s now available in 480 Coles stores across Australia where customers can bring back their soft plastics – including bread bags, biscuit packs, plastic bags and polypropylene shopping bags - to be recycled and turned into useful things like outdoor furniture for schools and, most recently, trolley bays at one of our new stores.
Approximately 280 tonnes of plastic was returned to our supermarkets by customers for recycling via this program in the past year. To encourage customers to bring even more plastic back to Coles for recycling, we’ve begun putting a recycling logo on relevant Coles brand products and we’re looking at expanding the program into more regional areas.
As well as recycling solutions, we regularly review product packaging in line with the Sustainable Packaging Guidelines set by the Australian Packaging Covenant and our goal is to move to fully recyclable packaging for our Coles brand products and fresh produce in coming years. This will mean phasing out the remaining small number of Styrofoam trays being used in the fresh produce area.
We’re adopting innovative solutions for food packaging, such as a plant and PET-based meat tray (Plantic eco Plastic R™) for packaging Coles brand fresh beef, pork and lamb mince. The packs combine the use of renewable corn and recyclable plastic material to deliver a meat pack that is compatible with kerbside recycling streams. If recycled, this will reduce meat trays sent to landfill by 35,099 cubic meters per year, equivalent to 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
We’re also working hard to source recycled content for packaging. Coles Brand Vinegar is now packaged with 15 per cent recycled plastic, replacing new plastic.
We understand some consumers would prefer not to have organic produce packaged in plastic. It’s something we’ll continue to review but we don’t have an easy solution for this right now. It is used for a number of reasons, including to allow differentiation between organic products and conventional products – so that our customers receive what they pay for and our organic farmers are rewarded for their effort and passion.
There’s plenty more that we’re doing here at Coles to consider the environment. We’ll be updating our website soon with this detail and we’ll keep you posted on our progress.
Regards - the team at Coles”
