Greens press for action on reverse vending machines

Green campaigner Louise Banawich is pictured at Tesco in Oldham

Green campaigners in Oldham and Saddleworth have written to Tesco and other leading supermarkets urging them to bring forward plans to install reverse vending machines in all their supermarkets. 

These machines repay customers a small deposit paid on plastic bottles and will be required by law from 2024.

Oldham and Saddleworth Green Party campaigner Louise Banawich said: "In the past many people made money by returning empty glass bottles to the shops.

"This encouraged genuine recycling and it was a system that benefited everyone.

"It's time a similar incentive was given to recycle the enormous amount of plastic bottles we use in the UK each year.

"At present many of these bottles end up littering our streets, parks and waterways."

In the UK 7.7 billion plastic water bottles are used each year, with the average person in the UK now using 150 plastic water bottles every year – that’s more than three a week.

Many are discarded, and end up polluting our rivers, streams and seas. 

You can make a t-shirt with five plastic bottles, and recycling a single plastic bottle will save enough energy to power a lightbulb for three hours or more.

Louise added: "If supermarkets took the lead and installed reverse vending machines right now that would be a vast amount of plastic removed from the local environment in Oldham and Saddleworth.

"We believe it's only right that retailers shoulder much more responsibility in reducing the amount of waste they produce, and they have a duty to facilitate local recycling whenever possible.

"We don't need to wait three years for this much-needed scheme."

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