Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Marks & Spencer (M&S) has removed glitter from its entire Christmas celebration range this year, including greeting cards, wrapping paper, tags, gift bags, calendars and crackers.
All designs which previously featured glitter are now widely recyclable and have been replaced with paper patterns or minimal foils.
The move represents the first step towards M&S’ commitment of ensuring its entire year-round range of cards and gift-wrapping products will be 100% glitter-free by the end of 2020.
Paul Willgoss, director of food technology at M&S, said: “We know reducing single-use plastics is as important to our customers as it is to our business, so removing glitter from our cards and wrap range will make it easier for them to celebrate Christmas in a more sustainable way. This is a step in the right direction as we continue working on our plans to completely remove glitter from the range next year.”
Customers visiting M&S Food stores will find its Christmas gifting range of flowers and plants, as well as single-use packaging for food products, will also be completely glitter-free this Christmas.
To encourage customers to recycle more, M&S has added clear back-of-product recycling instructions to its Christmas wrapping paper rolls with tips, for example: removing tape and any add-ons such as bows.
The majority of boxed cards have also transitioned from plastic to card packaging, saving almost 50 tonnes of plastic alone.
As part of its plastic reduction plan, M&S has already removed 1,000 tonnes of plastic packaging from across its business and is working to ensure all its packaging is widely recyclable by 2022.
