A new association was established: Coop, Migros & Co. promotes plastic recycling

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Plastic recycling continues! This week, a new organization for the Swiss-wide collection of plastic packaging and beverage cartons, “Recypac”, was founded.

Founding members include retailers such as Coop, Migros, Aldi and Lidl. There are also major food companies such as Nestlé, Emmi, Coca-Cola, Mars, Danone, Unilever and Doubt. The aim of the “voluntary industry organization” is to establish a harmonized and sustainable circular economy system for plastic packaging and beverage cartons across Switzerland. In other words, collection and recycling are coordinated at a national level with a system of paid bags returned to a collection point.

Coop also participates in the ERZ program

At the same time, the municipal waste disposal and recycling company Zurich (ERZ) reported that Coop has joined the program launched locally in 2022 for the separate collection of plastic packaging. Here too, retailers allow customers to return their plastic waste to points of sale in special collection bags.

Migros was the first to join, followed by Mr Green in August. Coop customers can now deliver their plastic waste in separate bags to the six Zurich Coop branches A-Park, Fluntern, Manessehof, Seefeld, Milchbuck and Wiedikon.

There is a lot of plastic in normal waste

The backdrop to the campaign is that ERZ found that the majority of plastic packaging in homes ends up in normal household waste. On average, each “Züri bag” contains more than ten percent plastic waste, the company writes. This rate needs to be reduced.

The price of a plastic packaging collection bag consists of a fee in accordance with the municipal waste regulation and the production costs of the bag. At Migros and Coop, the price of plastic bags varies between 90 kuruş and 2.50 francs, depending on their size.

Plastic packaging, yoghurt containers or plastic bottles of dairy products or cleaning products are collected. The new collection does not include PET beverage bottles and other plastic items such as toys or household items.

Greenpeace criticizes the approach

Environmental protection organization Greenpeace, of all people, is unhappy with these initiatives. This means that the expansion of plastic recycling only “reinforces cement production and consumption habits that are harmful to the climate and the environment.” A shift to reusable systems will be necessary instead.

Greenpeace even considers the new association “a lobby that shows reluctance to use less single-use plastic.” Greenpeace consumer expert Florian Kasser argues that collecting and recycling plastic separately is time-consuming and provides extremely little benefit to the environment: “These investments distract us from the fight at the root of the problem: phasing out single-use packaging and switching to reusable systems.”

Source :Blick