Lidl to remove 'unrecyclable' black plastic from fruit and veg packaging

News comes after discounter found to use lowest proportion of recyclable plastic among UK supermarkets

Lidl has pledged to remove black plastic from its fruit and vegetable packaging, which it says will save an estimated 50 tons of waste per year.

Black plastic is not recyclable in the UK because the optical sorting systems used for recycling cannot detect the black carbon pigments used to colour the plastic.

An investigation by Which? earlier this year found that almost a third of plastic packaging used by supermarkets in the UK was either non-recyclable or not easily recyclable, and Lidl was revealed to use the lowest proportion of widely recyclable packaging at 71 per cent.

Lidl said black plastic will be removed from products including mushrooms, baby sweetcorn, asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower, by the end of this month.

The supermarket also said it will remove black plastic from its fresh meat, fish and poultry range by August 2019.

The discounter claims to be the first supermarket in Britain to remove black plastic from product packaging. In January, Waitrose announced plans to scrap 65 per cent of black plastic from its fruit, veg, meat and fish packaging, but set a deadline of “from 2019 onwards”.

Tesco has also pledged to ban non-recyclable plastic packaging by the end of 2019.

Lidl said it continues to test and trial more loose fruit and veg across its fresh produce range, and is in the process of trialling the removal of packaging from onions, cabbages and lettuces.

Ryan McDonnell, Lidl’s Commercial Board Director, commented: “This significant move away from black plastic demonstrates our dedication to tackling this important topic. We recognise the current challenge that black plastic presents to the recycling industry, which is why we have made it our priority to remove it from our fresh ranges.

"As part of our commitment to achieving our ambitious targets, we are continually exploring opportunities to cut our packaging, and where packaging is necessary to protect food and minimise food waste, we will ensure that it is reusable, refillable or recyclable.”

Louise Edge, senior oceans campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “Supermarkets are the place where a lot of the throwaway plastic filling up our homes comes from, so it's good to see more of them are responding to the public's concern by taking action. Black plastic is one of the most problematic forms of plastic you can find on supermarket shelves, and Lidl are doing the right thing by phasing it out as quickly as possible.

“This is a clear signal to both our government and other major retailers that we don't have to wait decades before getting rid of problem plastic. This is only a start, but the faster we act the easier it will be to protect our environment from the scourge of plastic waste.”