Supermarket giant Lidl becomes first to offer customer recycling facilities in-store
Lidl Northern Ireland has become the first retailer to install customer recycling stations at checkouts across all its 38 branches, in a bid to reduce packaging waste bought in-store.
The scheme is the first of its kind among supermarkets in Northern Ireland and offers Lidl’s hundreds of thousands of weekly customers the opportunity to remove unwanted recyclable packaging at the point of purchase so it can be recycled in-store.
Article continues below
Latest statistics show that Newry Mourne and Down District Council collected 18,924 tonnes of local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste between October and December 2018, the majority of which consisted of household waste, equating to 266 kg of waste per household.
The household waste recycling rate was 50.2%, slightly higher than the Northern Ireland average.
Deirdre Ryan, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Lidl, said, “The introduction of in-store recycling stations for our customers is another big step on our journey to tackle important sustainability issues.
“Lidl is proud to be a sustainability champion and has gone much further than our competitors to implement a number of initiatives to reduce the amount of recyclable materials associated with our products.
“This checkout recycling station initiative will further reduce the amount of recyclable materials taken out of store and provides our customers with a convenient drop off point for unwanted recyclable packaging.
She added, “We’re proud to be leading the Northern Irish retail sector in implementing sustainable initiatives that benefit our environment, our communities and our customers.
“This scheme will result in tonnes of plastic, cardboard and other materials being recycled across our store network, which will greatly contribute to our waste reduction targets.”
The launch of the new in-store recycling stations was welcomed by Ricky Burnett, Acting Chief Executive of arc21. Speaking at the launch Ricky commented, “We warmly welcome this latest initiative by Lidl which offers their customers the opportunity to shed some packaging at the point of purchase. As Government consider introducing detailed measures to make producers more responsible for packaging, this is a proactive and visible demonstration towards embracing this principle.”
The launch of the scheme follows a successful trial of checkout recycling stations within the Republic of Ireland and has now rolled out across Lidl’s 190+ stores across Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=66993
Posted by Newry Times News
on Jul 22 2019. Filed under Business.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
