More Southern Co-op stores in East and West Sussex offer soft plastic recycling

After the success of its trials, Southern Co-op has announced that it now has soft plastics recycling bins in all 11 of its East Sussex stores and in 17 of its West Sussex stores.

This makes a total of 167 across the south of England.

Simon Eastwood, chief operating officer for retail at Southern Co-op, said: “We started to trial these towards the end of last year and they have been really well received by both customers and colleagues. We would ask recyclers to double check if their plastics can be recycled before putting it in the bin. One way to do this is the scrunch test. It also needs to have had a quick clean but it doesn’t need to have been bought in store to be recycled with us.”

The independent, regional co-operative said having soft plastics recycling bins in more than 80 per cent of its stores will allow more customers to recycle materials safely that cannot be recycled at home.

They said all Co-op branded food packaging is now easy to recycle through kerbside collections and soft plastic recycling in store.

The recyclable material is sent to a company called Jayplas, which turns it into post-consumer plastic granules, which can be made into products like bin liners.

Examples of acceptable items for recycling project include: bread bags, produce bags, carrier bags, wrappers around toilet rolls, bags from frozen foods, lids on yogurts, and lids from packs of meat and ready meals.

Stores in East Sussex with soft plastic recycling bins include: The Co-operative Food in Eastbourne’s Beatty Road, Lindfield Road and Seaside, Brighton’s Bramber House in Falmer, Hove’s Old Shoreham Road, Portland Road and Western Road, Portslade’s Abinger Road, St Leonards’ Battle Road 290 and Battle Road 100, and Wadhurst’s Sparrows Green Road.

Stores in West Sussex with the bins include: The Co-operative Food in Bognor Regis’s Hawthorn Road and Rose Green Road, Bosham’s Delling Lane, Broadbridge Heath’s Wickhurst Square, Burgess Hill’s Junction Road and London Road, Chichester’s Bognor Road, Lavant Road, Oliver Whitby Road, Spitalfield Lane and Stockbridge Road, East Wittering’s Cakeham Road, Ferring’s Ferring Street, Haywards Heath’s Franklynn Road, Horsham’s Guildford Road, Selsey’s High Street, and Yapton’s Main Road.