Morrisons gets eco-friendly with move to ban black plastic

The Bradford-based firm said it is the first retailer to announce the complete removal of black plastic from all of its packaging.

It said that removing black plastic from its own brands will make almost 4,000 tonnes of packaging more easily recyclable - the equivalent of more than 7 per cent of the plastic used at Morrisons each year.

Black plastic is hard to recycle because it is coloured using carbon black pigments which mean it is invisible to sorting equipment at recycling facilities and tends to end up in landfill or being incinerated.

The shift includes the supermarket's ready meal range, which has moved from black packaging to a recyclable plastic which contains 85 per cent recycled content.

Natasha Cook, packaging manager at Morrisons, said: "It's important to our customers that we make it easier to recycle plastic and so we are very pleased to announce that we've been able to eliminate black plastic from our own-brand products."

The big four grocer said its commitments have already removed 9,000 tonnes of unnecessary or problematic plastic each year, including plastic produce bags in fruit and veg aisles and non recyclable polystyrene from food and drink products.

Morrisons has promised that all of its own brand plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable by no later than 2025.

It has already removed 5p plastic carrier bags from all stores and offered customers a range of re-useable bags. It has also introduced the option of using large reusable 20p paper carrier bags in all of its stores and enabled customers to use their own containers for meat and fish at its Market Street Butcher and Fishmonger counters.

Morrisons is one of the original signatories to WRAP’s UK Plastics PACT, an industry initiative which aims to transform the way businesses use plastic and prevent plastics polluting the environment.