Plastic Free Diss group welcomes Aldi plastic ban

A Diss campaign group has welcomed the news that a town centre superstore is to trial reducing its use of the single-use plastic.

Aldi, on Mere Street, will start removing plastic from “some” fresh vegetables in Diss as part of its campaign to cut waste packaging.

Following the success of a trial selling five loose fresh produce lines without plastic wrapping in Scotland earlier this year, the supermarket now intends to sell ‘plastic-free’ vegetables across parts of the south east.

The news was greeted with delight by The Plastic Free Diss campaign.

“This is great news,” said one of the founders, Gary Alexander.

“Aldi is one of the worst offenders and it is difficult to get unpackaged vegetables from there, so we welcome this initiative. Everything helps.”

Aldi’s trial applies to loose savoy cabbage, red cabbage, white cabbage, pointed cabbage and cauliflower – is successful, it will be rolled out to all Aldi’s 830 UK stores by the end of the year. It is estimated that the move could avoid the use of more than 100 tonnes of plastic a year nationwide without increasing food waste.

Around 50 people attended the first public meeting Plastic Free Diss campaign held at the United Reformed Church on May 17. The group was originally started by traders in Norfolk House Yard and Cobbs Yard in 2018, who pledged to reduce the use of single-use plastics in their day-to-day business.

Diss Community Partnership is now backing the campaign and arranged the meeting. The initiative has also won the support of South Norfolk Council and Diss Town Team.

“We have also held a meeting on Fair Green a good number of people have now also joined us,” said Mr Alexander.

Aldi’s move follows similar restriction imposed by Morrisons and Tesco.

A spokesman for Morrisons said: “We have removed plastic bags from our loose fruit and veg section and replaced them with paper.

“We are selling more lines of loose fruit and veg, for example our naked cucumbers and we are giving all customers the option of using a paper rather than plastic carrier bag.”

Tesco announced last year that it would ban hard-to-recycle plastic packaging by 2019 and make all packaging fully recyclable by 2025. It also began plastic free trials for fruit and vegetables, elsewhere in the country.