Amsterdam has just opened the world’s first plastic-free grocery store aisle with over 700 products, including fruits, vegetables, cereals, condiments, beverages, snacks, meats, and non-perishables. These items are all packaged in recyclable and biodegradable materials.
This comes at a time when unnecessary plastic pollution is a growing global concern that is affecting our oceans, habitats and food chains.
The Dutch grocery store chain, Ekoplaza, is working on creating similar aisles in 70 of their other branches.
“Plastic-free aisles are an important stepping stone to a brighter future for food and drink. We know that our customers are sick to death of products laden in layer after layer of thick plastic packaging,” said Ekoplaza chief executive, Erik Does.
Les rayons sans plastique sont un moyen très innovant de tester les #biomatériaux #compostables, qui offrent une alternative plus #écologique aux emballages en #plastique, explique le directeur général d’Ekoplaza #ErikDoes @CarrefourGroup @AholdDelhaize @AUCHAN_France @monoprix pic.twitter.com/tWJJ06OGrk
— A Plastic Planet (@aplastic_planet) February 28, 2018
Environmental group, A Plastic Planet, organized and orchestrated the project and hopes this sparks interest across the world. This is one of many initiatives they are working on in order to ditch the use of plastic packaging.
“There is absolutely no logic in wrapping something as fleeting as food in something as indestructible as plastic. Europe’s biggest supermarkets must follow Ekoplaza’s lead and introduce a plastic-free aisle at the earliest opportunity to help turn off the plastic tap,” says A Plastic Planet’s co-founder Sian Sutherland.
Let’s hope this sparks other cities and countries to join in. This is a huge turning point in the war on plastic pollution!
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