Waitrose launches US$1.32m initiative to tackle UK plastic pollution

29 Jan 2019 --- UK supermarket Waitrose has launched The Million Pound Challenge in partnership with environmental charity, Hubub. The retailer will award funds, over one year, to projects that can demonstrate an impact on plastic pollution now and in the future. The £1 million (US$1.32 million) fund has been raised from the sale of 5p carrier bags and grants will range from £150,000 (US$197.83) to £300,000 (US$395.66).

Applications for Plan Plastic are open until 24 February 2019 and will be welcomed from a range of organizations including charities, academic bodies, social enterprises, and schools and colleges, across the following project areas:

• Plastics in the community: Projects encouraging and enabling plastic recycling and the circular economy linked to social impact, for example, promoting wellbeing in the community.
• Education: Campaigns aimed at children and young people to raise awareness and change behavior to reduce plastic pollution.
• Public behavior change: Projects inspiring and enabling new ways of shopping and consuming.
• Food, agriculture and farming: Projects focusing on finding alternatives, reducing use, and increasing reuse of plastics in the food, agriculture and farming industries.
• Microplastics: Projects aimed at identifying the impact, reducing the prevalence and preventing microplastic pollution.

An independent expert panel made up of representatives from academia, industry, non-governmental organizations, business and a senior Waitrose Partner, will convene in April to review the submissions. The chosen grantees will be announced in May 2019.

“We hope the fund will help find new and effective ways of accelerating action to rethink how we all use and dispose of plastic - now and in the future. We take this issue very seriously and are making progress all the time, but we’re determined to maintain our momentum as well as supporting others to do the same,” says Tor Harris, Head of CSR, Health & Agriculture for Waitrose & Partners.

Trewin Restorick, CEO and Founder, Hubbub adds: “Waitrose’s new grant fund is tremendously exciting as it will support innovative thinking on how to combat the issue of plastic pollution. We’ll be on the lookout for entries that really demonstrate a tangible impact and that will have a longer-term legacy beyond the grant funding stage.  We’d encourage any eligible organization working in this space to apply via the website.”

Waitrose recently committed to removing all 5p plastic bags from its shops by March 2019 and will also replace loose fruit and vegetable bags with a home compostable alternative by spring 2019. By doing this, it will cut almost 134 million bags each year from the environment, which equates to 500 tons of plastic.

At the same time, the UK government has launched a consultation to increase the 5p plastic bag charge to 10p and extend the scheme to all retailers. The move comes as part of UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s strategy to reduce single-use plastic waste and transform throwaway culture.

Waitrose has also pledged not to sell any own-label products in black plastic packaging beyond 2019 and has already hit its target to remove black plastic on its fresh meat, fish, poultry, fruit and veg. Waitrose is committed to making all its own-label packaging widely recyclable, reusable or home compostable by 2023.

“Eliminating black plastic is a priority for us,” adds Harris. “While removing it we have also taken the opportunity to reduce the amount of plastic of any color by removing trays from fruit and veg like apples, broccoli and pak choi.”