Aussie shoppers are fed up with the amount of packaging on products and have no idea what to do with it, new consumer research from a major supermarket has revealed.
Research commissioned by Aldi found 73 per cent of Australians want supermarkets to work with suppliers to reduce the packaging on products and 62 per cent want companies to have sustainable business practices without passing on the cost to consumers.
As well as the survey – a national sample of 1008 qualified Australian adults – finding Aussies cared about reducing plastic, it also revealed many are confused about how to do their own recycling at home.
More than two in five Australians (43 per cent) don’t always recycle packaging at home and 42 per cent said the reason was because they were confused about what can be recycled.
Four in five shoppers (79 per cent) also said they would correctly dispose of their household waste if they had clearer instructions.
Aldi has committed to put the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) logo and recycling instructions on all of its Aldi brand products by the end of the year. The information was already on 75 per cent of the products by the end of last year.
Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation chief executive Brooke Donnelly said the label helped make cleaner recycling streams.
“It is commendable to see Aldi support its customers to play their part in correctly recycling and disposing of their packaging,” she said.
Aldi corporate responsibility director Daniel Baker added: “The industry-approved ARL instructions show how to correctly dispose of product packaging and will hopefully give our customers peace of mind that they are doing the right thing by reducing waste to landfill and contributing to a more sustainable future.”
Coles has committed that all its own brand packaging will have the ARL logo by 2025.
It is understood Woolworths already has the ARL logo on all of its own brand packaging, making it the first supermarket in Australia to do so.
Aldi has the goal of reducing plastic packaging on products by 25 per cent by the end of 2025 and has so far achieved an 11 per cent reduction since 2019.
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The company said that was the equivalent of more than 4000 tonnes of plastic.
Last year, Aldi became the first supermarket in Australia to ditch plastic straws on carton juice poppers and committed to roll out nationally paper straws on all its carton drinks.
The company said the “simple swap” will save 18 tonnes of plastic waste each year.
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