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 the moment we recycle 71% of waste from our stores and we aim to increase this to 80% by 2008.
We are helping our customers to recycle too, with recycling facilities at most of our larger stores.

Recycling is a key issue for our customers and we aim to make it even easier. Across the UK, we account for 13% of all material collected for recycling by local authorities, through recycling facilities at 450 of our superstores.

We are committed to doubling the amount our customers recycle by 2008. To help make this happen we have developed new technology that makes recycling a lot simpler. 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.

On average, our automatic recycling machines are now collecting over 1 million items every week. We want the recycling they collect to be used in our packaging, closing the recycling loop. We’re working with our packaging suppliers to find the best way to do this.

Tesco stores with automatic recycling centres

Recycling mobiles and inkjet cartridges
Recycling your old mobile or inkjet cartridge is as simple as picking up a special envelope at Tesco. Or you can send it to us in your own envelope – just follow the simple instructions below. We’ll give you Green Clubcard Points to reward you for being greener. Or you can ask us to make a donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care for you.

More about Green Clubcard Points and mobile/inkjet cartridge recycling.

Recycled Stationery
We have a range of recycled stationery in our stores, including envelopes, notebooks and copier paper – as well as recycled pens from Pilot.

Greener Computers for Schools
Last year, our Computers for Schools programme, which has donated almost £110 million worth of equipment to schools in the UK since 1992, went greener with all the vouchers being printed on recycled paper. This year, a range of power-saving ecoquiet PCs (which use around 100 watts less than normal computers) will be on offer. We will also be working with the Carbon Trust to give schools the chance to win an environmental audit, and with The Woodland Trust to plant a tree for every PC given away.

Find out more here

Christmas Card recycling
In partnership with The Woodland Trust we collect Christmas cards for recycling. Tesco collected more than 1000 tonnes in January 2008 alone – and that's over 50 million cards!

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. Which meant that during 2006 and so far this year, 224 million green tray trips were made, saving over 132,000 tonnes of cardboard packaging.
• In July 2006 we started supplying surplus food from 35 stores to the charity Fare Share, which distributes it to people in need. Our Elephant and Castle store in South London alone supplied over 200kg of food to disadvantaged people in the community. It’s fantastic that 2006 saw Fare Share provide 3.3 million meals to 350 organisations. Over the coming year we hope to supply Fare Share with surplus food from many more of our stores – initially around Bristol, Sunderland, Glasgow, Leeds and Aberdeen.
• We’re also making our packaging more eco-friendly to reduce waste. For example, we are now using reusable plastic flower buckets as an alternative to cardboard packaging, saving 150 tonnes of cardboard.

More plans for the future
We’re exploring how we can generate energy from the general waste we produce each year through gasification. We also took part in WRAP's meeting on food waste in 2006, and are also investing in the possibility of composting and anaerobic digestion of waste.