‘Tipping point’ reached as recycling label hits century

An 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 in the UK aimed at slashing the amount of recyclable packaging heading to land-fill.

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 continues to be actively supported by Wrap. The label now appears on more than 60,000 product lines. The brands and retailers signed up to the label account for more than 90 percent of grocery sales in the UK and they include a range of other retail sectors. 

The BRC now plans to shift its focus toward raising public awareness of the label and encouraging consumers to recycle as much as possible. The collection gap (the difference between how much can be collected for recycling and how much is actually captured for recycling) is significant for several materials; less than 50 percent of plastic bottles for instance are captured for recycling. As all bottles are labeled as ‘widely recycled’ under OPRL, the scheme can play a pivotal role in improving this.

Bob Gordon British Retail Consortium’s head of environment and OPRL director, said: ‘Signing up our one hundredth company is a tipping point moment. 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 behavior. 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, such as the Womens’ Institute, to raise awareness of the label. Currently too much recyclable packaging makes its way to landfill. This label gives consumers the information they need to make the right choices, we just need to make them aware of it.’

Wrap’s chief executive Liz Goodwin said: ‘Working with partners such as the British Retail Consortium to support major retailers and brands is one of the most effective ways to improve resource efficiency. For OPRL to appear on 60,000 product lines shows the tremendous progress that can be made through these sorts of partnerships.’

Click here for a full list of participating companies.

Click here for further information, including an image of the label. 

Click here for more stories about the British Retail Consortium on L&L.com.