Selfridges has stopped selling single-use plastic bottles of carbonated drinks.
The department store switched all carbonated drinks to cans and glass bottles at its London, Birmingham and Manchester locations last week as part of its pledge to help reduce plastic pollution.
It sold half a million single-use plastic bottles of carbonated drinks last year.
This shift follows Selfridges’ introduction of the world’s first edible drink packaging, Ohoo!, last month. It was also the first UK retailer to swap out single-use plastic water bottles for alternative materials in its stores in January 2015. The retailer supports the #OneLess campaign from the Zoological Society of London, Forum for the Future, the International Programme on the State of the Ocean and the Thames Estuary Partnership, which focuses on encouraging Londoners to reduce their consumption of single-use plastic bottles to protect the ocean.
“We are seeing a huge shift in people’s attitudes to single-use plastic water bottles, and now, carbonated drinks,” said Alannah Weston, deputy chairman of Selfridges Group. “As a city, we still have a long way to go but we can encourage environmentally conscious behaviour from individuals, to manufacturers, and retailers. At Selfridges we want to continue to support that change and give our customers the choice to buy better.”
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, called the change a “great move,” and outlined that it sent a “clear message” to major drinks manufacturers to reduce their use of plastic bottles. “Selfridges is continuing to confront the crisis in our oceans by dealing with the problem of plastics at its source - banning the single-use plastic drinks bottles produced by carbonated soft drinks companies,” he said. “Hopefully Selfridges’ bold move will make soft drink giants have a rethink about their reliance on single-use plastic bottles.”
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