Saturday, the government announced that they want to ban disposable plastic by 2020. Now both Meny and Kiwi are to remove several disposable plastic articles from their store shelves.
“We do not want to contribute to plastic floating around on the beach and in the park. We take our share of responsibility and remove disposable plastic articles on typical picnic products, and replace them with better alternatives,” says environmental manager Erik Halstensen in Meny.
The stores are now replacing packages of straws and plastic cutlery with cardboard and degradable wood respectively. According to the store chain, this will be a plastic reduction of 11 tonnes a year.
“While removing plastic litter receptacles, we must continue to encourage customers to take get rid of their garbage, and provide them with information on how to dispose of the waste so that we achieve the highest possible degree of recycling,” says Halstensen.
According to NRK, the store chain Kiwi has also introduced similar measures. The news comes the day after the government announced its ambitions to ban will ban plastic disposable cutlery, plastic plates, straws and q tips during next year.
Rema 1000 informs NTB that as early as March, they started work on replacing the disposable plastic with more sustainable alternatives.
“Among other things, this year, we replace 10 million plastic straws with a cardboard option, we are coming with a sustainable alternative to cutlery and remove plastic disposable plates. We have already cut over 500 tons of plastic in our stores and will cut 1500 tons by 2020,” says head of corporate responsibility in rema 1000 Norway, Kaia Andresen.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today