Supermarkets are gearing up to launch a second major push on reuse and refill technology in a Plastics Pact Mark II being drawn up by Wrap, The Grocer can reveal.
In a report released this week, the climate change body said there was a “clear appetite” across the industry to agree on new standardised principles for an “at scale” rollout of the technology, despite a series of recent setbacks.
Retailers will be asked to agree to the mass rollout of standardised technology on a sector-by-sector basis across their stores.
The move was announced in a progress report this week on the industry’s original Plastics Pact, which was launched by Wrap and the food industry in 2018 alongside the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It was seen as a “trailblazing” move by the UK to lead on plastic reduction upon its launch.
However, the Pact has achieved mixed success, with half of its key targets for its end date of 2025 set to be missed and plastic packaging only reduced by 7% since it began, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Wrap has called for the government to introduce regulation to force companies to introduce loose fruit and veg, with just 19% of fruit and veg sold without plastic.
Wrap said it was now drawing up targets for the industry to go beyond 2025 in a Mark II of the Pact, and that it had identified reuse and refill as a “core pillar” for targets and action to “shift our reliance away from single-use packaging”.
“There is clear appetite across industry to collaborate and develop standardised reuse principles,” says the report.
“Over the next 12 months, Wrap will work with industry to agree a quantified goal to reduce single-use packaging and increase reuse and refill, as the proposal for a successor agreement to the Pact.
“In the meantime, Wrap will collaborate with the value chain to develop a category-based approach which will see reuse and refill delivered at scale across the UK through standardisation.
“This will involve the development of blueprints and a consistent methodology for reporting progress.”
Wrap said it would also look to ramp up the use of its recycling locator, an online tool which will be used to guide consumers to refill locations to try to drive up participation. Trials of the technology to date have been hampered by low uptake from the public.
The creation of a new Plastics Pact follows a series of recent warnings that unless the industry massively scales up the use of reuse and refill technology, it will not hit its 2030 net zero targets.
In March, Wrap called for supermarkets to seek to deliver 30% of all own-label product sales by volume in either refillable or reusable packaging by 2035. A major report by the IGD launched earlier this month also earmarked a ramping of reuse as one of the ways the industry needs to respond to the climate crisis.
However, there have been a series of blows to refill and reuse technology this year.
Also in March, Asda scrapped its flagship store trials of refillable packaging technology. They had featured huge refill stations offering staples from the likes of PG Tips, Vimto, Kellogg’s, Radox and Persil, allowing customers to bring their own containers to fill up on items such as tea, coffee, rice, pasta and washing powder.
Other retailers, including Morrisons and M&S, have also canned trials of refill aisles, citing lack of appetite from consumers and the impact on store environment. In 2022, Tesco wound up its trial with reusable packaging company Loop, citing economic barriers.
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