Aldi to remove all plastic from own-brand tea bags

Aldi has become the latest supermarket to commit to removing single-use plastic from all its own-brand tea bags by the end of 2021.

The UK’s fifth-largest supermarket is to switch the oil-based plastic sealing of the tea bags to biodegradable materials, meaning all tea bags will be 100% biodegradable.

It follows a number of trials and comes after a similar move by Sainsbury’s in January.

Bosses added they will remove the outer plastic packaging from its own-brand tea products too, meaning 1.4 billion pieces of single-use plastic will no longer be needed, equivalent to 80 tonnes going to landfill each year.

Richard Gorman, plastics and packaging director at Aldi UK, said: “By the end of this year, all of our own-brand tea bags will be biodegradable and contain no plastic whatsoever.

“The changes we’ve made to our tea range will help us reduce our environmental impact and offer our customers even more environmentally sustainable options when they shop at Aldi.”

Last year, Aldi pledged to halve the volume of plastic packaging it uses by 2025. This will see it remove 74,000 tonnes of plastic packaging from products over the next four years.

The supermarket, which has been carbon neutral since January 2019, is also on track to have all own-label products recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022, and branded products sold at Aldi by 2025.

Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s committed to removing plastic from its own-label tea bags packaging by the summer and introduce tea bags that can be recycled in compost bins.