Milestone for world-first recycling label
A world-first on-pack label which lets shoppers know which packaging can be recycled has signed up its 100th company. The milestone triggers the start of a public awareness campaign aimed at slashing the amount of recyclable packaging heading to landfill.
Birdseye, Innocent, Henkel, GlaxoSmithKline and WH Smith have joined a string of major brands and retailers in adopting the On-Pack Recycling Label (OPRL), which was launched by retailers’ group the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and is supported by WRAP. The label now appears on more than 60,000 product lines, with the brands and retailers signed up to the label accounting for more than 90 per cent of grocery sales in the UK.
The BRC now plans to shift its focus toward raising public awareness of the label and encouraging consumers to recycle as much as possible.
“Up to now, we’ve just been trying to get buy-in from retailers and manufacturers, but the label now appears on enough products for us to refocus our energies toward raising public awareness and changing consumer behaviour,” says Bob Gordon, British Retail Consortium head of environment. “We need to make sure that more of what can be recycled actually goes into recycling. In the next few months we’ll be announcing plans to work with local authorities and community groups to raise awareness of the label.”
