British company Tesco, which is one of the biggest national retail chains, released a statement on a significant reduction in the use of plastic in the packing of various Christmas goods. Many of the traditional Christmas products have been produced without the usual disposable plastic packaging.

So, Tesco's traditional crackers packing this year will be made entirely of cardboard without any use of plastic. The gift that goes with the crackers is also not made of plastic.

More than 300,000 Christmas lights this year will be sold in recyclable cartons. The plastic has been removed from the packaging of Christmas cards - now the group packaging of the cards will be in recyclable cardboard boxes. The plastic layer has also been removed from the packaging of Christmas puddings. In total, the changes affected more than 20 million products.

Moreover, this year Tesco stopped using glitter to decorate all disposable items and packaging. Thereby, making wrapping paper, gift bags, postcards, etc., recyclable and reusable.

All of these steps were probably based on a large-scale study by Tesco that showed that a huge number of the British (almost three quarters of the population) place great emphasis on ecological packaging of goods and would prefer to buy goods in recyclable packaging.

«It is an absolute priority of ours to remove and reduce the amount of plastic in our stores to the minimum and ensure everything we use is recycled and kept out of the environment – Christmas time is no exception and we want to do our bit to help customers have more sustainable celebrations.»- Said Tesco Quality Director Sarah Bradbury.

We remind that earlier Tesco announced its global strategy to reduce plastic in packaging, called 4Rs: To Remove it where it can. Reduce where it can't. Reuse more. Recycle what's left.

According to the company, this strategy will allow Tesco to remove all unnecessary, non-recyclable materials from its business.

Materials from tescoplc.com site were used.