Alliance Healthcare pledges to reduce single-use plastic by 60 per cent in three years

Alliance Healthcare UK has pledged to reduce the use of single-use secondary plastic by 60 per cent within three years.

Measures undertaken by the company to reduce its carbon footprint, which were initiated last year, have carried on despite the challenges thrown by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alliance Healthcare UK recently started to roll out new reusable tote bins to replace plastic bags and cardboard packaging to its Health and Beauty customers.

Work being carried out across the company, as part of its 'Getting drastic with plastic' campaign, includes removal of invoice bags, switching to paper bubble wrap and investment in reusable totes, the company said on Tuesday (Oct 27).

“We recognise that as an industry leader we must pioneer the way in reducing our impact on the environment, managing director Julian Mount said. "Our three year plan will entail an ambitious 35 per cent reduction of single-use plastic secondary packaging by September 2021.”

Aiming to reduce the overall use of single-use plastic by 60 per cent by September 2022, three years from when the initiative started in 2019, Alliance Healthcare UK has already saved over 39 tonnes of single-use plastic items. By the close of the next fiscal-year the aim is to save a total of 131 tonnes, the company added.

“Every year, over two million units of single-use plastic bags and cardboard boxes will be removed from our operations, considerably lessening Alliance Healthcare’s carbon footprint,” said Jon Cornforth, the national environment health and safety manager.

Several businesses in the UK have increased their push on cutting plastic pollution since a 2018 David Attenborough series, Blue Planet II, drew wider attention to the problem.

Community pharmacies have been banned from supplying plastic straws and plastic stemmed cotton buds to customers in England after the latest environmental protection regulations came into force on October 1, 2020.