The trade magazine for the packaging industry
The trade magazine for the packaging industry
Deutsche Umwelthilfe has taken a look at Lidl's current single-use plastic campaign and criticised it. The campaign conceals the unfavourable eco-balance results and makes distorting comparisons between single-use and reusable plastic.
The German Environmental Aid (DUH) warns against a current single-use plastic campaign by the discounter Lidl. The company is going to great lengths to advertise the claimed environmental friendliness of its disposable plastic bottles. The advertising campaign is based on a life cycle assessment study that the discounter commissioned from the ifeu Institute has commissioned. According to the environmental and consumer organisation, however, this compares "apples with pears". Lidl does not compare its own specific single-use plastic system with that of a specific reusable bottler, but contrasts it with average market data for reusable plastics. New technical data from 2021/22 is used for the Lidl system and figures for reusable bottles, some of which were collected more than ten years ago. In addition, the discounter fails to mention in its advertising spots and on posters that the 0.5 litre Lidl disposable plastic bottle made from 100% recycled material has a worse environmental footprint than reusable bottles.
"We warn consumers not to fall for Lidl's advertising campaign. Videos with Günther Jauch in futuristic computer-generated factories are apparently intended to distract from the actual facts: Lidl compares apples with pears and conceals unpleasant results in its adverts. We call on Günther Jauch to distance himself from this single-use plastic campaign. If his commitment is based on misinformation, we offer him a dialogue. In view of this renewed attack by a discounter on the environmentally friendly German reusable system, we call on Environment Minister Steffi Lemke to immediately implement the promotion of reusable packaging agreed in the coalition agreement. The appropriate way to do this is to introduce a 20 cent levy on single-use plastic bottles in addition to the deposit."
Barbara MetzDUH Federal Managing Director
According to the environmental and consumer protection association, the pretence of a 100 per cent Lidl material cycle is also perfidious. In fact, there are material shrinkage of between two and five per cent during each recycling process - In other words, plastic that is lost and has to be replaced from other sources. Without refreshing with new material, the original recycled material would no longer be available after a certain time.
"To replenish the material lost during recycling, Lidl uses other market players and purchases old disposable plastic bottles from them. These companies then have to replace the material elsewhere. As a rule, they resort to fossil-based virgin plastic. Lidl's alleged 100 per cent recycling cycle thus becomes a farce."
Thomas FischerDUH Head of Circular Economy
The authors of the Lidl study themselves also emphasise that the Approach of single-use plastic bottles made from 100 per cent recycled material not transferred to the entire beverage industry and other companies can be recycled. In fact, the average use of recycled material in the production of disposable plastic bottles across the industry is only 40 per cent. Therefore, despite the optimisations advertised by Lidl, plastic bottles remain what they have always been: an overall unecological disposable packaging.
Source: DUH
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