Spanish retailer Mercadona has said that it is on track to have all regular plastic shopping bags removed from its stores by April of this year, replaced by more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
Between February and April, Mercadona will replace plastic bags across its network with paper bags, bags partly made recycled plastic and raffia bags, concluding a process that began in 66 stores last year.
Mercadona said that it is adhering to a ‘circular economy’ approach by recycling 3,000 tonnes of plastic packaging from its stores to develop reusable bags.
Starting The Process
The process began in Mercadona’s stores in València, Bizkaia, Barcelona, Cantabria, Illes Balears, Ceuta and Melilla last year.
It will be rolled out to Catalonia, Madrid and Navarra this month, before reaching all 1,600 stores by April.
In terms of the bags made from partly-recycled materials, of which between 50% and 70% is recycled, Mercadona said that it intends to have these comprised from 100% recyclable materials by 2021.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
