Retail chain Marks & Spencer is considering reducing plastic packaging used in its product lines to just one type of polymer, in a bid to aid consistency in recycling, the company has revealed.

Kevin Vyse, senior packaging technologist and innovation lead at Marks & Spencer, told a plastics recycling conference last week that the retailer is exploring the possibility of reducing all plastic packaging to a single polymer type.

He said: “Consumers are still confused, they still don’t know what to do with plastic. As a business we are asking how do we make that easier for customers to understand and the big debate that we are having at the moment is do we get to just one polymer?”

Mr Vyse added: “As an organisation, we want to challenge our partners to ask what they are going to do on this issue.”

The call for a reduction in plastic polymers in packaging was welcomed by the chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), who said that householders are ‘confused’ about the recyclability of plastic packaging.  He said: “We need the supply chain to work together to create demand, my message is can we reduce the range of polymers used?”