Supermarkets blasted as nearly HALF of packaging cannot easily be recycled in the home

NEARLY half the packaging used by major supermarkets cannot be easily recycled, a study has found.

Researchers looked into the wrapping of 46 of the most popular items from Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

The worst was Morrisons. Many of its items came with non-recyclable plastic film, so it had the most packaging that could not be easily recycled — at 61 per cent.

The Co-op was close behind, at 58 per cent.

Tesco and Waitrose were the best performers, with just 40 per cent of their packaging hard to recycle.

Overall, 52 per cent of supermarket packaging could be put into household recycling bins with ease.

INCORRECT LABELLING

Examples shown up by the Which? study included M&S British Wiltshire unsmoked back bacon rashers where the tray is recyclable but not the plastic film.

Lidl’s unsmoked back bacon used non-recyclable plastic, while only the base in the packaging for Morrisons strawberries can be recycled.

The amount of packaging overall labelled either incorrectly or not at all was 42 per cent — increasing the chances of it ending up in landfill.

Iceland had only two in five pieces correctly marked. One example was its easy-peeler oranges, which were not labelled at all despite the non-­recyclable plastic netting used.

Asda was best, correctly labelling 78 per cent.

Natalie Hitchins of Which? said: “There is a lot more supermarkets and manufacturers can do to make sure packaging is minimal, recyclable and correctly labelled, so shoppers know exactly how they can recycle it.

“To reduce waste, the Government must make labelling mandatory, simple and clear to ensure that recycling is easy for everyone.”

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