Morrisons, Tesco and Asda among supermarkets 'on track to ditch black plastic by end of year'

Black plastic is hardly ever recycled (Picture: Unsplash)

At least five supermarkets are set to ditch black plastic in their own-label products by the end of the year.

Morrisons announced last week that it has already eliminated the material from its own-brand food and drink packaging.

The supermarket said the move will make almost 4,000 tonnes of plastic more easily recyclable, according to The Grocer.

Four more supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose - are also close to hitting the milestone by the end of December.

A shopper pushes his cart outside a Morrisons supermarket (Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the Co-op, Iceland, Marks & Spencer and Aldi hope to ditch black plastic throughout 2020.

Tesco said it is on target to remove all black plastic from the supermarket brand products by the end of December, as well as other "hard to recycle" materials.

Group CEO Dave Lewis said: "Over the last year we’ve changed the packaging for 800 Tesco brand products, removing over 4,000 tonnes of hard to recycle packaging.

Supermarkets are tackling their plastic use (PA Archive/PA Images)

"By the end of this year, we will have removed the hardest to recycle materials from Tesco products and we’re now working with branded suppliers to do the same."

Asda have said they will also stop using black plastic by the end of 2019.

A spokesman also said: "By the end of next year nearly a third of our plastic packaging will be from recycled sources and all of our packaging will be 100% recyclable by 2025."

Many supermarkets have pledged to eliminate black plastic (Getty)

Sainsbury's is another supermarket set to remove the material by the end of the year, by which time 6,000 tonnes will reportedly be recyclable.

Meanwhile Waitrose said it had removed nearly 90 per cent of the 2,291 tonnes of black plastic it uses as of the end of October, adding that it is "well on track" to fully eliminate it by the end of December.

The Co-op has pledged to see all own-brand black and dark plastic packaging eliminated by 2020.

The chain has also promised to make all its own-brand packaging to be recyclable by 2023 and to use a minimum of 50 per cent recycled plastic in bottles, pots, trays and punnets by 2021.

Iceland said it expects to not be packing any own-label products in black plastic by the end of January.

Marks & Spencer is on track to remove black plastic before the end of next year while Aldi also has a target of December 2020.