Plastic Innovation: Tesco’s Big Step for Recycling

There are plastic innovations left, right and centre, but this one has caught a lot of people’s eye. Maybe because Tesco is such a large, influential company and this step is the first of its kind for Supermarkets.

What Did Tesco Do?

A Tesco Extra store in Scotland has recently used a slightly different approach to resurfacing their car park: in the form of recycled plastics.

The waste was previously destined for landfill and incineration before Tesco stepped in to use the 900kg of plastic. This is equivalent to 225,000 plastic bags!

This project was in partnership with a larger plastic road company and allowed Tesco to further their existing recycling and promote reusing materials for a sustainable future.

The plastics were ground into tiny pieces and mixed with an asphalt mix to strengthen the material; this will make the roads durable and pot-hole free.

Tesco seems to be one of the big movers and front-runners when it comes to recycling, especially plastics. They were the first supermarket to stop selling 5p single-use plastic bags last year.

This car park was part of a wider project to promote sustainability, reduce the carbon footprint and to find innovative and new ways to reuse plastics.

The Future

This road surface is going to be tried and tested for the sustainability, and if successful it could be rolled out across more stores.

If successful this could be an extremely sustainable way of reusing plastic waste across the UK and Europe.

The real test for these plastics roads will be over the winter period where the mixture will be exposed to harsh weather conditions.

This plastic innovation is getting us one step closer to being able to use plastics sustainably and is aiding in increasing the longevity of the plastics industry.