Recycling and waste

The UK produces over 26 million tonnes of household waste each year, much of which ends up in landfill sites. Other waste is incinerated, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. We’re committed to cutting as much waste as we can and to helping our customers to do the same.

What are we doing?

We’re recycling 
We’re reducing waste

Recycling at our stores

Last year we helped customers to recycle approximately 200,000 tonnes through recycling facilities at 600 of our stores.

To help make recycling easier we have developed new technologies. Our automated recycling machines, introduced in 2005, sort plastic, metal and glass so our customers don’t have to. Then the units shred the waste so more can be stored, which means fewer collections, saving on transport and CO2.

On average, our automatic recycling machines receive 50,000 visits a week and we currently have 70 of them across the UK. In May 2009 we launched a smaller ‘Recycling on the Go’ machine outside some of our Express stores to recycle drinks bottles and cans.

Tesco stores with automatic recycling centres

Recycling mobiles and inkjet cartridges
Our successful mobile and inkjet cartridge recycling schemes have been running for several years. If avoiding sending waste to landfill wasn’t enough of an incentive, we’ll also give you green Clubcard points as a thank you for recycling. Or you can ask us to make a donation to Muscular Dystrophy Campaign on your behalf.

More about green Clubcard points and mobile/inkjet cartridge recycling.

Christmas card recycling
For the past few years we have participated in The Woodland Trust’s Christmas card recycling scheme. The scheme collected over 59 million cards in January this year, which helped raise money for planting trees. More about Christmas card recycling

Batteries and clothes
We are working closely with operators to improve clothes and other textile recycling at our stores. We are also trialling a WRAP scheme to collect used batteries in store.

Reducing waste
We’re continually looking for ways to reduce the amount of waste that gets sent to landfill. Here are some of the steps we’ve taken:

• Our reusable ‘green trays’ have helped us to replace the cardboard boxes and other packaging used to transport and display products.
• In 2006 we started supplying surplus food from 35 stores to the charity Fare Share, which distributes it to people in need.
• We’re making our packaging more eco-friendly to reduce waste. For example, we introduced reusable plastic flower buckets as an alternative to cardboard packaging, saving 150 tonnes of cardboard.
• Last year, we estimated that customers took home over 150 million Tesco hangers. To help reduce the number going to landfill we’ve introduced hanger recycling bins in our larger stores.

More plans for the future
We are reducing waste sent to landfill by trialling anaerobic digestion in a plant near our Ludlow store in Shropshire, converting waste into an energy source. Following the success of this trial we have plans for a number of plants across the UK. This includes a potential central partnership anaerobic plant in Leicestershire.