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The increasing amount of waste sent to landfill in the UK continues to be an issue of national importance and, as a major retailer, we recognise our responsibility in this area.

Most of the waste we produce is generated in our stores, from cardboard and plastic packaging to waste food. We aim to reduce the waste we produce from our own operations, recover as much as is practical, and ensure that the remainder is disposed of responsibly. We also encourage customers to recycle by working with local authorities to provide recycling facilities at our stores and we stock a range of products designed with a high recycled content.

Minimising consumer packaging whilst preserving its primary function – protecting the product throughout the supply chain – is a key challenge. We aim, wherever possible, to use recyclable plastics in our own-brand packaging and to promote compostable packaging.

Waste

We have continued to achieve a steady decline in waste sent to landfill. Using a baseline of 2004/05 we set a new target for 2010: to reduce waste sent to landfill by 5% and increase the amount of recycling relative to turnover.

In 2005/06 we sent 85,181 tonnes of waste to landfill, a decrease of 9.9% compared to 2004/05. We also increased by 1%, compared to 2004/05, the amount of waste diverted from landfill, primarily by recycling more cardboard and plastic.

New regulations on uncooked animal by-products mean that fresh and dried meat and fish waste can no longer be disposed of in landfill sites. Meat and fish waste made up an average of 7% of store waste in 2005. This was removed for rendering where it was cooked for its fat content which can be reused as fuel. Our long-term strategy is to pursue composting and anaerobic digestion, which reduces organic waste to methane and a soil enhancer, as a means of dealing with our food waste.

Packaging

Our primary targets for 2005/06 were to reduce overall packaging by 2010 by 5% relative to turnover (against a 2004/05 baseline) without increasing packaging related wastage. Also to reduce carrier bag usage by 5% by March 2006.

We are in line to achieve our 2010 target in relation to packaging but analysis of our performance shows that carrier bag usage rose by 2.5% in 2005/06, however this was significantly below our sales growth in the same period. We will continue to extend the range of reusable bags we offer as an alternative to free carrier bags. The most recent addition to our range of reusable bags was the ‘Fold-a-Shopper’, designed to take up a minimum amount of space. The Sainsbury’s ‘Bag for Life’ is currently selling at a rate of 120,000 each week. We estimate that these strong, reusable bags, which we replace free when worn out and send for recycling, save about 50m standard bags each year.

For the ‘Sainsbury’s So Organic’ range we continue to increase the number of products that use compostable packaging, a truly biodegradable, sustainable solution that is made from renewable sources like maize or sugarcane. We require that all compostable packaging be sourced from crops that are not genetically modified. All our compostable packaging must be certified to the European standard EN13432, which enables us to display the ‘Compostable’ logo and so tell customers they can compost it in the garden. Supplies of this new form of packaging remain extremely limited but we are keen to grow these markets.

The supply chain

We are proactively working with suppliers to replace the use of cardboard with returnable transit packaging. Using one reusable crate saves around 21 cardboard boxes. We have increased the weekly usage of crates in the supply chain by nearly one million. Across the business, this equates to approximately 8,400 tonnes of cardboard saved.

Source: http://www.j-sainsbury.com/files/reports/cr2006/index.asp?pageid=74#organic_packaging