Shoppers will be able to deposit any single-use drinks packaging made from either PET plastic or aluminium, between 100ml and three litres in size. Barcodes must be attached and readable.
Collected packaging will be sent for recycling. Lidl is aiming to capture at least 10.5 tonnes of material every month.
The launch of the scheme is intended to go some way to preparing customers for Scotland’s nationwide deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks packaging, which was due to launch last August but was delayed until March 2024.
Further delays could yet be announced due to backlash from some retailers, plus the fact that a UK-wide DRS is not due to launch until early 2025 at the soonest.
DRS initiatives see a levy placed on beverages, which customers can only claim back after returning their used packaging to a certified collection point for recycling.
But Lidl has elected not to add a levy to its beverages at present. Instead, customers will receive a 5p reward for every bottle or can returned, with no limit on the amount that each person can claim. They can receive the rewards as either a voucher for money off their next shop, or as a donation to Lidl’s charity partner in Scotland, STV Children’s appeal. The appeal supports children in poverty with education, mental health care, social activities and necessities like food and clothing.
Lidl GB’s chief commercial officer Richard Bourns described the initiative as “a win-win for all”.
He said: “We’re on a mission to eliminate all unnecessary waste, and with over 95% of our own-brand packaging now recyclable, reusable, or refillable we’ve been making great progress. We know that Lidl shoppers share this passion, and we hope that utilising this infrastructure, which might otherwise have been left dormant, will help to make recycling their cans and bottles even more convenient for them.”
It was restrictions on shipping furniture to Europe using Styrofoam — a lightweight plastic foam that is notoriously bad for the environment — that inspired Alvin Lim to pivot to sustainable packaging in the mid-2000s.
“It was 2005, a time when outsourcing was sexy. I had multiple businesses, and one of them was producing furniture for the gaming industry. I was told that I couldn’t use Styrofoam to ship to Europe, or there would be tariffs. That led me to explore alternatives,” says the Singaporean entrepreneur, who went on to launch RyPax, a company that makes recyclable, biodegradable moulded fibre packaging from a blend of bamboo and sugarcane.
His first big move was to convert the Napa Valley wine industry from Styrofoam to moulded fibre in the United States. At the height of the wine club craze, RyPax shipped 67 40-feet high containers of wine shippers to wine producers. “The wine industry wanted to get out of Styrofoam — they never liked it. We gave them a classy, environmentally-friendly alternative,” says Lim.
Alvin Lim, chief executive of RyPax
The real breakthrough for his business came at Pack Expo, a packaging convention in Las Vegas. “We attracted a lot of interest, but there was one gentleman who spent 15 minutes at our booth inspecting our products. I was busy with another customer, so he slid his card on our desk, said ‘call me next week’ and walked away,” recalls Lim.
That interested customer would ultimately become RyPax’s flagship client.
A large, well-known consumer electronics brand known for its sleek design and intuitive products became a mirror image of RyPax’s own culture and approach to sustainability. Just as RyPax helped the client move out of plastic and into moulded fibre, the client inspired RyPax to switch to renewable energy to power its operations. As well as investing US$5 million to put solar panels on the roofs of its factories, RyPax has invested US$1 million in a wastewater system.
In this interview, Lim talks about innovation in packaging design, the weak links in the circular economy in Asia, and what will persuade consumers to pay more for sustainable packaging.
Which innovations in sustainable packaging design excite you the most at the moment?
A good example is a moulded fibre sleeve for bottles. Our strategic partner, James Cropper, produces a luxurious champagne bottle sleeve that is 100 per cent sustainable. The design reduces the carbon footprint of the packaging; you save on space, it’s lighter, you use less material, and you don’t need an expensive exterior box.
A moulded fibre champagne bottle cover by James Cropper. it’s lighter and uses less material. Image: James Cropper
Another example is the paper drinking bottle. A competitor has produced one using two pieces of paper stuck together with a lot of hot glue (so it’s really hard to separate) over a plastic lining.
There are challenges with paper bottles too. Is it commercially viable and ready for mass production? RyPax has taken up the challenge to address these issues. We have broken it down in phases. Firstly, we are working on a bladder system which uses either an aluminum or a thin plastic bottle that can be easily removed. We know that this is a not a viable long-term option, and so the next step that we are taking is to create a mono-material for the bottlebody with a sustainable coating to hold the liquid in. Lastly, our company is working towards a goal of eliminating plastics completely, which spurred us to innovate a mouldedfibre screw-top option that would be revolutionary.
There are good ideas emerging in the industry, but a key issue is shared knowledge. Yes, corporate profits and competitor advantage are important, but the sooner good ideas can be shared the better. We need to look at the bigger picture. Once paper bottles a feasible at scale, a huge amount of plastic can be removed from the system.
Will sustainable packaging always be more expensive than single-use plastic packaging?
There is an inherent difference in properties between plastics and sustainable materials harvested from nature. As such, in certain applications, sustainable materials are still more expensive than plastics. However, technology and advancement in machinery are fast evolving, resulting in cost efficiencies for mass-produced sustainable materials and packaging.
Furthermore, governments across the globe are introducing tariffs on plastic use, which in turn will spur more companies to convert to a more sustainable approach, that may result in an overall cost reductions.
Most sustainable materials are harvested from nature, and do not have the properties of plastics or metals. As such, in certain applications, sustainable materials are still more expensive than plastic. But technology is fast evolving, and may result in cost reductions for mass-produced sustainable materials. And if tariffs are placed on plastic, as a way to control plastic pollution, that could result in companies switching to more sustainable materials.
Recycled plastic is always going to be more expensive than virgin plastic, because of the cost of retrieving, processing and recycling it. In some applications, recycled paper may be more expensive than recycled plastic. Price parity may come when sustainable materials can scale, or when customers are willing to accept changes in design, because it’s more environmentally friendly.
What will persuade people to pay more for sustainable packaging?
It starts with education. If consumers are more aware of the damage that plastics cause the planet, they would be more inclined to help pay the cost of creating a circular economy.
Do you think that consumers are getting over the taboo of buying products made of recycled materials?
I think the big brands like Nike and Adidas are forcing the issue by using recycled material in their packaging and products. The intention is for it to look recycled with its mashed up designs speckled in various colours. Our partner, James Cropper, is upcycling takeaway coffee cups into luxury packaging, recycled bags and greetings cards. Now, there’s a big push for ocean plastic. Logitech has just announced an ocean plastic optical computer mouse. Once companies go down that route and recycled content becomes more accepted, then it’s just a matter of aesthetics. Some companies want a rough, unfinished, more natural look, some want a more premium look and feel. There is an increase in consumerdemand forsustainable packaging or products and they are willing to pay for it.
Which plastic products can be replaced with moulded fibre?
Another product that needs a design overhaul is clothes hangers. Why must they be made of plastic? RyPax is working on a moulded fibre clothes hanger to further eliminate single use plastics. Another is cosmetics, which are a major cause of single-use plastic pollution. Some components of lipsticks, such as the twist mechanism may need to remain plastic, but why can’t the rest be moulded fibre?
Clothes hangers made from moulded fibre. Image: RyPax
The packaging industry is growing rapidly, but is the waste management instructure in Asia developed enough to cope with this growth and bring about a circular economy?
No. It’s a big problem, which was laid bare when China stopped accepting waste material imports [in 2017]. That sent the price of raw materials through the roof. Recycled material prices shot up too. Economies of a certain size and maturity were able to cope, because they had recycled waste streams already in place. But most countries were unprepared, and they needed to look to other countries to process their waste. Take Singapore, for example. It lacks the infrastructure and industry to process recycled materials. So it was exported to countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. These countries are not set up to process extra waste.
What is holding back the circular economy in Asia?
Infrastructure needs to change, and that will take time, investment and regulatory support. For example, for Singapore to develop a circular economy, it needs consumer buy-in, corporate willingness, and government support for industries that are moving towards more sustainable solutions.
We want to make the right decisions when we shop, but with so many different options on offer, how are we supposed to work out which one is best for the planet?
Guardian Money asked four experts. They are: Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at City University, London’s Centre for Food Policy; Clare Oxborrow, senior sustainability analyst at Friends of the Earth; Isabella Woodward, researcher at the ethical comparison website The Good Shopping Guide; and Caroline Drummond, chief executive of Leaf (Linking Environment And Farming.
Is it greener to drive to a supermarket or book a delivery?
Tim Lang It depends on how much you buy. Practically, it’s hard to know what that delivery van’s impact is. If you own your own van and fill it on one trip, the carbon expended becomes proportionately smaller per food item than if you drive to the shop and buy little. The best strategy is to walk or cycle: you are taking exercise, putting the embedded energy in the food you eat to good use, and not polluting with your car. Electric cars simply push the pollution elsewhere – to the generating source..
Friends of the Earth There are so many factors. For deliveries, there are several questions. First, where is the food coming from – is it a warehouse? A shop? And how far away? Do they use refrigerated vans which use a lot of energy? Many supermarkets are switching to electric vans, so it’s important to check what’s available locally. The fact remains that travelling to the supermarket by foot or bike is the best choice, or opting for public transport.
Leaf For a van to deliver to some remote places, it may not be greener, but that driver could be the only person an individual living in a remote area has seen for the whole week … It is really important to understand the balance and trade-offs between impact on the environment, alongside economic viability and social acceptability and, indeed, health.
Food deliveries have an impact on the environment – but some say there are economic or social benefits. Photograph: Kathy deWitt/Alamy Stock Photo
Is organic always better?
Tim Lang Not always. Organic has the huge advantage of not being associated with pesticide use. In July I saw at a UK supermarket organic spring onions grown in Mexico. That is ludicrous. In truth, consumers get next to no information on the multiple forms of impact our food has. That’s why I, and many people, call for a new “omni-label” system that provides the range of information: not just environmental but health, social and economic data. We don’t know, for example, how much of what we spend actually gets to the primary producer.
Friends of the Earth Organic is the gold standard … so if you can afford it, it’s a great option. When it comes to meat and dairy, it will almost always be the best environmental choice in a supermarket. It does cost a bit more, but buying less and swapping some meat in dishes with other protein-rich foods like lentils will make it go further.
The Good Shopping Guide Overall, organic crops are better for nature and the biosphere. Organic farming minimises the use of pesticides, which have a potentially adverse impact on wildlife and the soil. Additionally, pesticides can be harmful to agricultural workers. However, it is important to balance this against food miles. Organic products shipped from thousands of miles away may be more harmful to the environment. Therefore, we recommend buying locally grown organic ingredients wherever possible.
Switching away from single-use plastic can make a real difference. Photograph: David Forster/Alamy Stock Photo
Can packaging cut food waste?
Tim Lang Plastic wrapping is often good news for retailers as they know it slows down the rotting process, but it is terrible for consumers and the environment. I always say: good food goes bad.
Friends of the Earth Wrapping fruit and veg in plastic can mask the fact that it’s no longer fresh. And fruit and veg left in airless plastic packaging will often go mouldy quicker than loose items without the needless wrapping. Considering that packaging is responsible for 70% of our plastic waste, there’s a huge difference to be made. It’s always better to buy loose fruit and veg, making sure they’re as fresh as possible. Stored correctly, they can last longer, too.
Leaf Packaging has certainly created an opportunity to stretch our seasons and storage for fresh fruit and veg; however, fossil fuel-based plastics and single-use plastics that are non-recyclable need to be phased out. The more we can stretch the time that fruit and veg are tasty, nutritious and assured of their growing quality, the better. Canning, freezing, packaging, storage, use of LED lights and growing capability all provide that opportunity.
Morrisons offers sturdy paper bags at checkouts, as it looks to ditch all its plastic ‘bags for life’. Photograph: Morrisons/PA
Which bags should I use?
Tim Lang If you walk to the shops, invest in a good trolley. Trolleys are trendy. Plastic bags are bad news full stop, but the avalanche continues, and it’s hard to avoid them unless you get into the habit of carrying your own bag.
Friends of the Earth Those designed to be reused tend to have a lower environmental impact than single-use plastic bags but, importantly, they must be used a sufficient number of times. For cotton bags, 50-150 times; paper bags, four-eight times; durable plastic bags like bags for life, 10-20 times. Cotton bags can be used for years, and can be washed and reused. So if you take the long view, cotton is best and more durable than plastic, particularly if it’s organic, unbleached fibre.
The Good Shopping Guide There are pros and cons to all types of shopping bags. The main problem is that many people use them once and discard them after. Regardless of what material they are, single-use bags are always unsustainable. Whichever bags you prefer to use, remember to bring them to the shop with you.
Leaf I am a big fan of the cotton tote bag. We have seen a lot of movement away from people always expecting a new plastic carrier bag when shopping, and our next step is to strive to ensure the bags we use are long-lasting, sustainably sourced and robust.
Cutting down on meat is one way to help the environment. Photograph: Ed Brown/Alamy
What’s the top thing a shopper should do to help the planet?
Tim Lang Cut down on meat. Eat it less often and buy high-quality meat such as pasture-fed. Less but better.
Friends of the Earth Livestock production has an enormous environmental impact, contributing 14.5% of the world’s planet-warming emissions. The industry is also a key driver of deforestation and the loss of important habitats, not to mention the huge amount of water and fertiliser needed, or the amount of waste produced in the process. That’s why buying and eating less meat and dairy is one of the best ways to reduce our own environmental impact.
The Good Shopping Guide Be aware of the ethical issues. This not only relates to which supermarket you use, but also which brands you are buying. We independently assess companies on their practices towards the environment, animals and people, providing a score out of 100 for each brand.
Leaf Naturally, seek out and purchase Leaf Marque produce. Quality fruit and veg grown with care for the environment, enhancing biodiversity, improving our soil health and water quality, and grown by farmers committed to more regenerative, climate-positive farming systems. Plus, go and visit a farm to see what farmers are doing to address climate change challenges.
Tonnes of food scraps collected from restaurants and supermarkets are being converted into electricity under a green energy initiative powering thousands of homes in Perth.
The City of Cockburn has made the waste to energy service a permanent fixture of its general duties, collecting rotting food waste from local businesses and feeding it to a mechanical ‘stomach’ at a nearby fertiliser plant.
The anaerobic digester heats the food, traps its methane gas and feeds the energy into the electricity grid, powering up to 3,000 homes.
Key points:
A giant mechanical stomach is turning tonnes of food waste to energy
The electricity is being fed into the grid, powering 3,000 homes
The City of Cockburn has made the initiative part of its general duties
“Food waste really shouldn’t be thought of as a waste, it should be thought of as a resource,” said the city’s waste education officer, Clare Courtauld.
“It’s really important to take food waste out of landfill because it produces harmful greenhouse gases.
“If global food waste was a country, it would actually be the third-highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.”
Food scraps are fed to the mechanical stomach around the clock.(Flickr: Taz, CC BY 2.0)
Ms Courtauld said the City had so far recycled 43 tonnes of food waste and saved 81,000 kilograms of CO2 equivalent gasses that would have otherwise entered the atmosphere rotting in landfill.
The $8 million mechanical stomach sits at the Jandakot headquarters of fertiliser company RichGro.
It was the first bio-waste plant of its kind to operate in the southern hemisphere when it opened in 2016.
“Their trucks come in … they tip off the food waste.
“It then goes through a piece of machinery which removes any packaging that might be in with the food waste and any contamination.
“It pulps the food waste up into like a porridge consistency and doses it into a big tank.
The food waste is pulped into a rich slurry and pumped into the digester.(ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
“This tank then feeds the two digesters … they’re getting fed 24 hours a day.
“As it breaks down, it generates methane gas. We’re capturing that gas and we’re running large generators that combined can produce up to 2.4 megawatts of electricity.”
The plant powers the company’s entire operations and up to 3,000 neighbouring homes, all from food waste.
What goes in, must come out
“Out the back end comes a liquid that is actually certified organic as a liquid fertilizer,” Mr Richards said.
“We sell a percentage of that to farmers and the remaining percentage of it we add into our compost piles.”
The bioenergy plant converts the methane gas from food waste into electricity to feed into the local power grid.(ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
Some foods are better than others.
“Certainly, you can overdo a good thing — you wouldn’t want too much fats, oils and greases.
“A lot of fruit and vege, starchy, sugary products are good. They produce a lot of energy.”
The City’s waste manager, Lyall Davieson, said there was community appetite for these sorts of initiatives.
“I’ve been in waste for about 25 years,” he said.
“Not so long ago, all we could really do was just recycle a few cans and a bit of steel.
“But now we really have at our disposal lots of options to divert waste from landfill and to recycle.”
The energy created from food waste is fed into the existing electricity grid, powering up to 3,000 homes.(ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
Frank Scarvaci, who owns a longstanding independent supermarket in Hamilton Hill, was one of the first businesses to sign up for the service.
He said it was a natural progression for his grocery store after embracing a plastic bag ban and installing solar power.
“I’ve been surprised [at] how the community has accepted the change,” he said.
“I thought [there] was going to be much more resistance in regards to when they scrapped plastic bags, for example — but there was virtually no resistance at all.”
Contamination causes indigestion
While common in Europe, the plant is just one of a few of its kind to be built in Australia.
People living close to the plant in Perth’s southern suburbs wouldn’t even know their homes are being powered by food waste.(ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
The City of Cockburn said it was not a waste service it would expand to households, because the risk of contamination disrupting the process was too high.
“We do have a machine that does have a certain ability to remove a level of the contamination,” Mr Richards said.
“Can it remove everything? No, it can’t.
“We’ve even had bowling balls come through — you can’t process things like that, in a system like this. It does damage our machinery.”
Bio-energy has a bright future
The bio-energy technology is growing in Australia, with the next logical step in the process to convert the bio-waste into biomethane, which could be fed into the gas grid.
The Federal Government is co-funding a biomethane production facility at a wastewater treatment plant in Sydney’s southern suburbs.
Once online in 2022, the $14 million plant is expected to pump biomethane derived from biogas created by a similar ‘mechanical stomach’ that would meet the gas needs of more than 13,000 homes.
To reduce the negative impact on the environment, many businesses and individuals have switched to sustainable products. One such important switch has been using alternatives to plastic straws. Many restaurants across the country are now serving beverages with straws made from materials like paper, bamboo, wheat stubble, and metal.
Evlogia Eco Care, a Bengaluru-based startup founded in 2018, is one such organization making eco-friendly straws named ‘Kokos Leafy Straws’, made using dried coconut leaves.
“While the midrib that holds the coconut leaves are used to make brooms, the leaves are discarded as agricultural waste at the farms. The straws are made using those discarded leaves after they undergo an intense cleaning process,” says Manigandan Kumarappan, the founder of the startup.
How is the straw made?
The dried coconut leaves are procured from four farms located in Tamil Nadu – Palani, Dindigul, Madurai, and Ottanchathiram.
Here, women are employed in farms run by NGO-supported Self Help Groups. Each farm has a varying number of women who collect these leaves, wash them under running water, and dry them under the sun for a few days.
“The leaves are then sent across to the production unit in Bengaluru which is also the head office. Here, it undergoes a pressure-heating process which is a deep clean method. Using a machine developed in-house, the leaves are washed in 120 degrees celsius steam which helps to make them soft and roll them easily into straws.”
At the production unit, Manigandan has currently employed 15 women from the local neighborhood in Kanakapura who roll the leaves into straws.
Women making the straws at the Bangalore production unit.
“With the help of three in-house employees, we made a rolling machine which is like a sewing machine that helps to roll the leaves into straws. The device is powered manually by applying pressure from the feet. This helps to roll the leaves by maintaining the desired diameter of 3 millimeters,” he says.
Finally, using a cutting machine the straws are cut into a standard size of 8.25 inches. But, Manigandan says, if a customer places a bulk order, the size can be adjusted according to their requirement. The straw can be made in a size ranging from 4 inches to 12 inches. Based on the size the price varies from Rs.1.5 to Rs 3.
From preparing the raw material to packaging the final product, the work is entirely done by women. Manigandan claims the product can be kept in hot beverages for half an hour and cold beverages for up to 6 hours.
The inspiration behind the product
The founder, Manigandan has previously worked with several Multinational Companies. In 2016, he decided to leave the corporate life and become an entrepreneur. On that note, he started Tenco – a company that sells half-trimmed coconuts over e-commerce platforms.
“The product was delivered to the customer along with a plastic straw. But, some customers gave us feedback about the same and requested that we switch to a sustainable alternative. This made us think about what we could do, and soon we stumbled upon the idea of using coconut leaves which are the least used product from the tree,” says Mani adding that the leaves are sturdy, and can even pierce through tetra packs without bending.
Nakul Mysore Jayaram, the owner of World of Coffee Cafe in Chikmagalur has been using the product since September 2019. He says this straw is more versatile compared to paper straws which he used earlier to serve beverages.
“The coconut leaf straw is sturdy and does not get soggy like paper straws. Earlier customers used to complain about the paper straws and would request to replace it repeatedly or ask for a plastic one. But with the coconut leaf one we have had no complaints from the customers,” says Nakul.
About the startup
The company was founded in 2018 along with his wife Radha Manigandan. The duo raised seed investments supported by Hindustan Petroleum. In January 2019, the production of straws began with one employee which has now grown to 15 employees.
Earlier, the company was making 100 straws/ day, now, their capacity has increased to 10,000 in a day.
The founder Manigandan, co-founder Radha Manigandan, and the three engineers.
Manigandan says, “We had only a rolling machine to maintain the size of straws, but could not increase production capacity as the pressure-heating sterilization had to be done using a cooking grade pressure cooker. This could hold only a few leaves at a time, and the process took 50-60 minutes. Three months ago, we introduced the pressure-heating machine which was made in-house with the help of three engineers who are interns turned full-time employees. Though this machine takes the same time to sterilize the leaves, it can hold a larger capacity and help to produce 10,000 straws in one day.”
Currently, the straws are being distributed across Canada, UAE, Germany, USA, and a handful of restaurants in Bangalore. Apart from straws, the startup has also ventured into making air-tight food containers from Areca leaves.
If you wish to place an order for the straws, you can contact the startup through their website.
