Tesco joins Lidl, Aldi and Asda in ditching coloured milk bottle tops - here’s why

Tesco will join other supermarkets Lidl, Aldi and Asda in ditching coloured milk bottle tops in favour of a clear alternative. The supermarket said it was scrapping blue, red and green milk caps in a move will involve around 425 million bottles of milk every year.

Tesco said the change would improve the quality of recovered material from household waste and enable caps to be recycled back into new milk bottles. Customers will be encouraged to squash or crush empty bottles, replacing the original lid before recycling to ensure it is not lost or discarded.

The move will apply in all Tesco stores across four-pint, two-pint and one-pint bottles of milk. Tesco said different variants of milk – whole, semi-skimmed and skimmed – would still be clearly identifiable, using coloured block labels around the main bottle.

Tesco has already removed around 2.2 billion pieces of plastic from its UK business under its ‘4Rs’ strategy. Tesco dairy category director James Waddy said: “Ensuring our packaging is as sustainable as possible is really important to us, and customer feedback on our trial of these new clear milk caps has been overwhelmingly positive.

“We will continue to look for ways to improve the packaging of our products, and make it even easier for customers to recycle at home.”