Tesco clamps down on ‘misuse’ of recycling scheme

The supermarket said people were cutting up items such as plastic bottles in order to receive more points.

The machines are installed at about 40 stores in England and one in Scotland.

The ‘reverse vending’ facility at Tesco Extra at Shettleston, Glasgow accepts cans, plastic bottles, yoghurt pots and plastic food trays and glass.

Glass is smashed, plastic bottles and aluminium cans and tins are shredded and granulated to reduce them to a fraction of their original size. The waste is then crushed and compacted on site, resulting in fewer lorry collections and therefore lower carbon emissions.

Previously, most of the recycling machines awarded one point for every four recycled items. Now Green Clubcard points will only be issued for cans.

A Tesco spokesperson said: “When we first installed the recycling centres we trialled different points systems at different locations, including points for plastic bottles.

“Unfortunately, this sometimes resulted in the system being misused with plastic items cut up into many small pieces in order to gain additional points, which we were unable to sustainably award points for.”

As a result, Tesco will give one Green Clubcard Point for every two aluminium cans recycled.

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