Sustainable packaging and recycling

A stable climate and rich biodiversity is vitally important for the long-term future of all life on our planet.

Containers, boxes, cups, bowls, utensils, packaging, bags, lids, straws, stirrers… our daily lives, our landfills, and our oceans are filled with single-use plastics. To fight growing pollution, we have introduced innovative, sustainable solutions for packaging and recycling - such as re-useable materials, bioplastics, and organic material - to help eliminate plastic waste from ending up in landfills.

The challenge single use plastics presents is large and we continue to ensure we are doing all we can to reduce the impact of our operations on the environment. We aim to prevent waste where we can and where disposables are still necessary we have introduced a number of environmentally friendly initiatives.

To help protect our planet, we have made commitments in our social impact pledge to:

• Move to 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025
• Eliminate hard to recycle or unnecessary plastic packaging and optimising use of reusable items where it is safe to do so
   

We have made great progress, and in the last fiscal year (FY22), 11.8 million items of single use plastics were eliminated from our operations in the UK and Ireland.

In fiscal year 2022, cutlery made up 19% of our total foodservice packaging volume, with takeaway food containers contributing 6% and plates 3%.