How our lunchtime shopping habits affect the environment
On 23rd May 2019 Waitrose & Partners announced their launch of the world’s first home compostable ready meal packaging as it moves nearly nine million products out of black plastic. On 20th May 2019 Morrisons became the first British supermarket to roll out plastic-free fruit and vegetable areas in its stores. On 22nd May 2019 the government announced plastic drinks stirrers would be totally banned from sale – currently 316 million are used per year. Also in a bid to limit ocean pollution, the UK government will introduce new controls on single use plastic items from April 2020. New measures on the sale of plastic straws and plastic cotton buds are also coming into place.
David Attenborough’s amazing documentaries or “The Blue Planet Effect” along with environmental campaigners, have had the greatest influence on the public’s perception of how we dispose of the packaging of our food. At Zinda Foods we have always been at the forefront of ways to ensure our packaging keeps our AirWraps looking good, fresh and not clammy but that our packaging is also easy to dispose of. In fact Zinda Foods is one of the few food to go manufacturers that pays attention to what types of cardboard are completely recyclable.
Zinda Food’s Founder & MD Anishya Kumar explains “When you are recycling your sandwich or wrap packaging, do you separate the plastic from the cardboard? Even if you do, that cardboard may be hard to recycle if it has touched food. Did you know that even an iota of grease or food residue on paper or cardboard makes the carton difficult to recycle?”
“If an average supermarket lunchtime shopper swapped their 8 own brand filled supermarket wraps for our Zinda AirWraps, not only would they be consuming fewer unhealthy trans fats, and avoiding deforestation as our AirWrap base is free of palm oil too. Those shoppers would also be saving cardboard or paper with grease or food residue from going into land fill. Our clear inner packaging made from recyclable plastic means our AirWraps don’t touch the outer cardboard.”
The diagram above takes 8 generic supermarket wraps is compared to the top 2 selling Zinda lines in 100 stores, based on an average of 20 units per store per week. “If you unpack those figures, it means 100,000 wraps per year and would save18,000 kilos of packaging going into landfill sites each year”.
Every small action has a big impact on our planet so choose your packaging carefully and think about how you dispose of it too.