Q&A: Packaging

Why are fruit and vegetables packaged, when they could be sold loose?

Packaging is used to protect the product throughout the process of getting it from the supplier, through to the Tesco store, and to the customer’s home. It also helps to extend the shelf-life of the product, meaning that the chances of the food being wasted are reduced.

Food waste creates methane, which is 23 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Also, usually a lot more energy is consumed in making the product than the packaging that protects it, so by preventing the food product from going to waste, packaging can be said to play an important role in reducing energy wastage.

Why do you use packaging that cannot be recycled?

At present, cardboard, paper, glass, aluminium, steel cans and plastic bottles are the only packaging materials for which recycling facilities are currently available for the majority of the UK.

A large percentage of our products cannot use these types of packaging due to the levels of protection that are required (ie food safety regulations). However, these types of packaging, often plastics, are lightweight materials that are usually very resource efficient when compared to alternative options, even those that are more likely to be recycled.

We are working closely with our suppliers and the government agency WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) to look at how we can firstly reduce and consolidate our packaging (both in terms of the weight and the number of types used), and also to develop technology that will change non-recyclable materials into recyclable.

Why is the majority of your packaging not compost-friendly?

Unfortunately, most of our products cannot use this kind of packaging because the nature of the product is unsuitable for that specific material type. For example, to reach the required standards for composting, packaging can’t be water resistant. This means any product that is sensitive to moisture (eg biscuits) can’t be wrapped in compost-friendly packaging.

There are other issues with compost-friendly packaging: 

• Most councils will not accept it in their green waste collections
• The crops used for it could be used for food
• If it ends up in a traditional plastic recycling stream (some look and feel like oil-based plastic) it contaminates the whole system
• If it is land-filled rather than composted, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas.

The technology is constantly changing for compost-friendly packaging and we’re keeping an eye on the situation. But at the moment we feel it is not the best environmentally-friendly option for most of our packaging.

Why don’t Tesco have reusable packaging?

There are a number of issues associated with reusable packaging. To maintain the quality of a pack to allow it to be reused several times, you need to increase the content of the packaging, making it stronger so it lasts longer. The packaging would then need to be reused a certain number of times to maximise its environmental benefit. Unless we can be sure that customers will actually reuse the packaging, it would create a worse situation for the environment.

There are also many standards of food hygiene to maintain, which makes reusable containers potentially very problematic. Following the waste hierarchy of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, our focus is currently on reducing the packaging we have.

Why are Tesco using so much plastic when glass (which can be recycled over and over again, and is not made of oil) is an alternative sustainable option?

Glass is made from sand and limestone, which are not scarce resources, so glass may be considered more sustainable than oil-based plastic. However, producing and recycling glass is more energy intensive than producing and recycling plastic, and uses considerable oil-based energy in the process. In some cases, glass may be a more environmentally-friendly packaging option than plastic, but in others plastic may be better than glass.

More on Tesco greener packaging.