The bottles used for major food and drink group Princes' soft drinks and oils ranges are now being made with more than 50 percent recycled plastic, the business said Friday.
By the end of September, all branded and own-label bottles are expected to contain 51 percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET), it said. Princes claims to produce around 7 percent of all plastic bottles used in the U.K. each year.
The issue of plastic waste is a serious one. Europeans produce 25 million tons of plastic waste per year, according to the European Commission. Less than 30 percent of this is collected for recycling.
"We want to increase the recycled content of all the plastic we use and have been working for some time to implement 51 percent RPET, as it's by far our biggest area of plastic usage," David McDiarmid, Princes' corporate relations director, said in a statement.
McDiarmid described the development as a significant step, not only for Princes, but "the wider grocery industry too, as we will reach millions of households through our supply of brands and customer own-brand soft drinks and oils."
A number of businesses are looking to tackle the issue of plastic waste and pollution.
Earlier this year, Evian, whose parent company is Danone, announced it would produce all its plastic bottles from 100 percent recycled plastic by the year 2025. Elsewhere, U.K. supermarket Iceland, which specializes in frozen food, has made a commitment to eliminate plastic packaging from its own-brand products by the end of 2023.