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Recycling & waste
Every year we find new ways of reducing and recycling the waste produced by our stores and depots.
Our ultimate goal is to send absolutely zero waste to landfill from any of our stores or depots by the end of 2010.
As a result of our commitment to give away fewer carrier bags and cut packaging, we’re also helping our customers reduce their waste too.
Save a packet!
Read about how we’re helping to reduce unnecessary packaging from a wide range of our products.
Zero waste to landfill
We’ve set ourselves the target of sending zero waste to landfill by 2010; and not just in our stores, but across all of the ASDA and George businesses, including depots and offices.
Landfilling is damaging to the environment, because the energy and materials required to make the things we throw away are lost instead of being recycled. What’s worse, biodegradable waste in landfill breaks down to produce greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming.
By encouraging everyone at ASDA to reduce waste, and by finding innovative uses for the things we usually throw away, we can save money and vital natural resources — making our business kinder to the planet.
By encouraging everyone at ASDA to reduce waste, money and vital natural resources can be saved.
Recycling programme
Over the last few years, we have put in place a comprehensive recycling programme which is now helping us divert 65% of our store waste from landfill.
At the heart of this programme are our regional ASDA Service Centres (ASCs). Waste is transported to these purpose built facilities from stores in the surrounding area. We do this using our empty delivery vehicles on their return run — a process known as backhauling — which means we don’t need to put more lorries on the roads just to transport waste.
Once at an ASC, the waste is bundled together and stored, ready to be sent for recycling. As of 2008, we had five of these ASCs, with three under construction. In 2007, they helped us to recycle more than 150,000 tonnes of cardboard and nearly 9000 tonnes of plastic wrapping.
Our goal is to eliminate the remaining 35% of our waste which is not currently reprocessed. Some of this can be recycled, but the majority of it is biodegradable materials, which we plan to use to create energy, using a process known as anaerobic digestion, or at combined heat and power plants.
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ASDA’s goal is to eliminate the remaining 35% of waste which is not currently reprocessed.
Food waste
In parallel with our own recycling efforts, we are striving to help our customers reduce the food waste they produce each day.
A number of factors contribute to the problem of food waste, such as portion sizes; a lack of knowledge on how to prepare food; concerns over sell-by dates and food safety; and a heavier reliance on pre-packed.
We are working with the Food and Drink Federation and the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) to standardise our portion sizes, and we are supporting the Government’s ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ campaign — coordinated by WRAP.
We also have a number of resources to help customers and colleagues make best use of our products, such as the hints and tips contained in the ASDA magazine (opens a new window), which are read by four million of our customers.
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ASDA is striving to help customers reduce the food waste they produce each day.
Carrier bags
When it comes to carrier bags, we’re trying to change the habit of a lifetime — but not at our customers’ expense. Instead of supporting the so called ‘green levy’ proposed by the Government, we want to incentivise customers who choose a re–usable bag. We have already led the way with a nationwide removal of single use carriers from all of our checkouts, encouraging customers to choose one of our ‘bags for life’ as a sustainable and affordable alternative. We’re also offering a new range of must have ‘bags for life’ and reusable bags — all of which have prominent positions on the end of our checkouts.
In addition to reducing their use, our aim is to limit the environmental impact of the bags themselves by decreasing their size and increasing their recycled content. We actually source the plastic material we use from our in–store recycling collections.
All of these initiatives will help us reach the Courtauld’s voluntary commitment to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags by 25% by the end of 2008.
Alongside this, we run the Go Green for Schools scheme, whereby local customers are rewarded with a point every time they reuse a carrier bag, or Bag for Life; these points can be given to local schools who, in turn, can claim ‘green’ prizes.
For more information on the Go Green for Schools scheme, visit our
Go Green for Schools website.
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ASDA is helping its customers change the habit of a lifetime.
Packaging
Our packaging teams have been working with organisations such as WRAP to design-out unnecessary packaging. To find out more about the work we are doing take a look at our Packaging section.
Recycling postcode lottery
With our customers becoming increasingly frustrated by how difficult it is to find recycling facilities in their area, we’re calling on central government to harmonise all local authority collection schemes and provide the necessary investment needed to move things forward.
To find out what our customers are saying and to find out more about how we’re trying to kick start the process, take a look at our
Recycling postcode lottery section.
Landfill Bill
ASDA has teamed up with viral specialists Matmi to create its first ever sustainability viral game, Landfill Bill.
The game, accessible from any PC or Mac with Adobe Flash installed, will give consumers the opportunity to learn more about what they can and can’t recycle, how best to do it, and the dangers to our planet if we don’t.
Play the game now and give Landfill Bill a helping hand recycling the right materials in the right way.
ASDA.com Copyright 2008.
