UK – American multinational confectionery known for its popular snacks Mondelēz International has announced that it has removed 1.1 million plastic trays across its entire adult selection boxes range in UK and Ireland this Christmas.

By swapping plastic trays for carboard, the confectionery giant will reportedly remove the equivalent of 33 tonnes of plastic from its inventory.

According to a report by FoodBev, the move will affect boxes of Cadbury’s Classic Collection, Cadbury Darkmilk, Cadbury & Oreo, Bournville and Toblerone.

The announcement marks the company’s latest move towards its vision of creating zero net waste packaging through its ‘Pack Light and Pack Right’ strategy.

It follows a 15% packaging reduction of its Cadbury large share bags such as its Cadbury Giant Buttons and Bitsa Wispa.

“The steps we are taking on our adult selection boxes, which follow the recent packaging reduction on our Cadbury large share bags, is an example of the varied approaches we are taking to tackle the shared problem of packaging waste,” Louise Stigant, UK managing director at Mondelēz International, said.

According to Mondelēz, it has already eliminated over 64,000 tonnes of packaging globally since 2013, made 100% of its paper-based packaging sustainably sourced and is on track to make all of its packaging recyclable by 2025.

 “Reducing the amount of packaging we put into the world, and making it easier for consumers to recycle our products, is vitally important to us.”

Louise Stigant – UK managing director at Mondelēz International

According to Plastic Ocean, packaging is the largest end-use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage.

Plastic ocean further notes that annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide.

The unfortunate statistic about plastic however is that the plastic bag which is produced in millions has an average “working life” of 15 minutes but it takes years to be fulling decomposed.

In a recent webinar event on sustainable packaging organized by Food Business Africa and powered ISHIDA, Managing Director of Tetra Park Southern Africa, Stephan Fagerang noted that out of the billions of plastics produced in the world only 5% are recycled, while 95% remains and adversely affects the environment.

The only viable solution in the immediate future is avoiding plastic for other readily compostable materials and Mondelēz is leading the way.

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