Young’s Seafood has announced that it has reduced its use of plastic packaging by 10%, ahead of its deadline at the end of the year.
The company made the initial commitment back in 2018 to cut its use of paper packaging and reduce its plastic packaging by 10%, including the removal of all black plastic, by the end of 2020.
The targets form part of a broader strategy to ensure that 100% of all the company’s packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
As a result, Young’s has removed over 170 tonnes of unnecessary paper packaging and 300 tonnes of plastic packaging.
In order to achieve this, the company reduced the size of its paper cartons for its Simply Breaded and Chip Shop standard and extra-large product ranges.
Meanwhile, to achieve its plastic targets – as set by the UK Plastics Pact – Young’s reviewed its entire product range and replaced plastics with recyclable materials, such as its bags of scampi. In particular, it eliminated over 40 tonnes of non-recyclable black plastic from its Gastro range by moving to a recyclable paperboard tray.
Helen Nickells, head of packaging development at Young’s, said: “The packaging reduction we have achieved to date, specifically our efforts across the Simply Breaded and Chip Shop ranges, has also allowed us to generate additional environmental benefits including taking 256 lorries of the roads and significantly reducing our carbon footprint.”
Young’s says its next course of action will be tackling functional films which are currently non-recyclable and a more complex material to replace. It also anticipates that all of its branded paper packaging will be from FSC or PEFC certified sources by March 2021.
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