Huge change coming for Woolworths household essentials – and why it matters for the environment
A huge change to a popular staple food being tested by a major supermarket chain is set to help Australia’s recycling efforts.
Colorful lids on Woolworths brand milk will be replaced with clear caps in a bid to increase recycling of the store’s milk bottles.
The supermarket giant launched a trial of the new clear top lids this week, with shoppers already noticing the change in some stores.
A major change is coming to supermarket shelves, with Woolworths replacing the colored lids on its supermarket brand milk with clear lids (pictured).
Woolworths has announced plans to install new caps on all of its own-brand milk bottles by the end of the year.
Woolworths milk bottles are sold with dark blue or light blue colored plastic lids.
But colored plastics are difficult to recycle into something new.
The clear lids can however be recycled and can also be used to make a new milk bottle.
This minor change will make it possible to recycle 290,000 kg of materials.
Woolworths daily goods director Will Herron said the move was an important step in creating better forms of waste management.
“We are pleased to be the first Australian supermarket to move to our own brand of milk to help our customers adopt good recycling habits,” Mr Herron said.
“Our customers are pretty poorly informed, so we expect them to notice the change, but it’s important they know why their milk bottle looks a little different.”
“This small change will result in better recycling of millions of milk bottles once it is rolled out across our range.”
The supermarket giant (pictured) began trialling clear lids in some of its stores this week, and plans to change the lids on all Woolworths brand milk bottles by the end of the year.
Australian Packaging Covenant Organization CEO Chris Foley welcomed the move.
“Small changes like this add up to helping recycled materials go into a wider variety of new products, and we hope to see more companies follow this approach,” Foley said.
“This change is just one of many changes Woolworths is making behind the scenes, which may be imperceptible to customers, but add up to make grocery shopping more sustainable.”
Woolworths has already rolled out clear lids on its yoghurt sachet products.
Shoppers have already noticed the subtle change with the colored lids being phased out, as it was found to affect recycling efforts.
The retailer is also expected to include clear caps on Woolworths-branded cream and bottled water.
Australia has one of the highest levels of food waste in the world, with households generating the most food waste in the country.
Latest figures show Australians produce 76 million tonnes of waste every year.
About half of waste is recycled while 27 percent is sent to landfill.
