Snacking brand pladis UK & Ireland’s partnership with recycling specialists TerraCycle is helping its customers make recycling their 2019 New Year’s resolution.
Clearly there’s a pressing need for greater recyclability in the snacking sector, with Brits buying 2.7 billion packs of biscuits every year.
However, the flexible plastic wrappers most commonly found containing snack foods are not collected by local council recycling collections.
But for the last six years, pladis has partnered with TerraCyle, allowing its customers recycle the wrappers of its snacking products, which include McVitie’s, Jacob’s and go ahead!.
Since the partnership began in 2012, millions of biscuit and cake wrappers have been recycled and turned into items such as park benches and garden equipment, rather than ending up in landfill sites.
Consumers can either send their wrappers to TerraCycle by freepost or drop them off at one of nearly 500 collection points around the country.
Scott Snell, Customer Vice-President at pladis UK&I, said: “During the festive period, we Brits consume 35 million more packs of biscuits than we do during the rest of the year, so it’s a really important time to start thinking about where all that waste goes.
“Today, we’re announcing our long-term strategy as well as some new commitments that will have an impact on our environmental footprint right now.
“We recognise this is an industry wide issue and we’ll be working closely with industry partners to tackle it. In the meantime, we are creating a solution by giving consumers the opportunity to stop wrappers going to landfill through this recycling scheme.”
pladis UK&I has also extended the TerraCycle partnership to the entire snacking range including Jacob’s Cream Crackers and Mini Cheddars which are popular snacks over the festive period.
Tom Szaky, CEO and Founder of TerraCycle, said: “pladis has been a valued partner of TerraCycle’s for a number of years now in the UK and Ireland.
“Firstly for the biscuit wrapper category, and more recently it was great to see them expand the programme to cover the cracker and cake wrapper categories which was well received by consumers.
“We encourage consumers to help spread the message to friends and family that they can recycle their biscuit, cracker and cake packaging. They can do this by using one of 500 public drop off locations or signing up as a private collector on the pladis Biscuits and Snacks Recycling Programme.”
Marcus Gover, CEO, WRAP, said: “We are delighted to have pladis UK and Ireland joining The UK Plastics Pact.
“Through our first-of-a-kind Pact we will work together with governments, citizens and business to transform the way we make, use and dispose of plastic so that we retain its value, particularly in reducing food and drink waste, but prevent it from polluting the environment.”
