Going ?nude?: UK supermarkets test plastic-free zones

[ahlam1399]

LONDON: British supermarkets are starting to go “nude”. Bowing to pressure from environmentally conscious consumers, big brand shops have begun taking steps to strip their shelves of plastic wrapping over concerns about saving the oceans from waste.“Nude zones” and “Food in the Nude” campaigns are already being rolled out in places such as New Zealand and South Africa, where many fresh fruits and vegetables are grown within relatively easy reach.Now retailers in Britain — where even bunches of bananas are often sealed in plastic to keep them fresh and undamaged during long-distance shipping — are gradually following suit. The Oxford branch of the upmarket chain was selling 160 types of vegetables and fruits, plus cereals, grains, couscous, lentils, wine, beer and other items in bulk, in what was initially planned as an 11-week trial.Currently, stores rely greatly on plastic to ship, store and sell items. The 10 largest grocery chains produce 810,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging every year, a figure that does not include bags, Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency said in November.Like Stirling, other shoppers have also been pressing the Oxford Waitrose supermarket to do more to stop plastics pollution via a wall, set up by staff, where customers have pinned hundreds of suggestions, many asking for refillable bottles for items like milk and cleaning products. It has now extended its trial in the branch and announced that it would soon introduce the scheme in three other stores.Waitrose has said, however, that it has yet to establish whether plastic-free zones would work in all of its 344 locations across Britain.Other big supermarket chains have signed up to “The UK Plastics Pact”. The pledge’s four tenets include eliminating all single-use packaging and making the remainder recyclable or compostable by 2025.Tesco and Asda, a low-cost retailer, have promised to stop using plastic for online shopping deliveries. Morrisons, which like Tesco and Asda is among the biggest five supermarket chains in Britain, intends to install plastic-free produce zones in 60 locations by the end of the year.Others are going further. Budgens Belsize Park, a London branch of the smaller supermarket chain Budgens — part of a 147-year-old company of nearly 250 franchises — has already ripped the plastic off more than 2,300 of its 14,000 products.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/LCnJAB-Dw24

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