Waste treatment guidance on SPAR own-brand product packaging

In order to simplify waste collection and make it more efficient, from this summer the company has started to print clear pictograms on the packaging of its own-brand products. This supports customers in understanding which can be put into sorted waste bins and which should go into general waste. In the first period, shoppers at SPAR will see the easily recognisable markings on almost 100 own-brand products, and in the future all the company’s private-label products will carry the icons supporting waste sorting.

“Protecting the natural environment is one of the key areas of the SPAR sustainability programme. Our company has taken many steps, from environmentally-conscious enterprise management and cutting emissions, through modernised waste management to the use of cutting-edge packaging technology. In addition to protecting environmental assets, we are also supporting our increasingly committed customer base by placing awareness-rising pictograms on our own-brand products which have packaging that either goes to sorted waste or to general waste. The informative figures and the brief information on material compositions enable customers to easily and swiftly decide which sorted or general waste bin the packaging should be put to. Following the initial batch of 91 goods, we are planning to place the marking on each of our own-brand food and beverage products,” explained Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

The company aims to help customers with how to properly handle the packaging of products, how to differentiate and sort them as waste after use. Therefore in 2021, the application of internationally-recognised markings on the packaging of all newly-developed or repackaged domestic own-brand goods will contribute to giving guidance and also recyclability. The pictograms on the packaging of these products help everyone decide what can be collected in sorted bins and what cannot.

In stores of the retail chain, customers can come across five types of packaging: plastic, aluminium, paper and fibre-based covering, glass and a combined packaging solution consisting mainly of aluminium-impregnated cardboard. Today, proper technology enables most materials to be recycled economically, so their sorted collection is therefore extremely important. The own-brand products with the waste management marking are covered by most of the company’s brands – Nelly, S-Budget, SPAR, SPAR BBQ, SPAR free from, SPAR hazai szeretem, SPAR vital, Veggie – including bottled mineral waters, syrups, boil-in-bag rices, pastas, biscuits, yoghurts and ready-made meals.

Consumers can also do a lot to reduce harms to the environment. One way to do this is to properly dispose and selectively collect food packaging waste. By clarifying what is qualified as sorted and general waste, these pictograms provide accurate guidance on what should be done.

Last year, through the joint efforts of Nestlé Hungária Kft. and SPAR Magyarország Kereskedelmi Kft. a sustainability guidebook was also published, titled “How do I become an environmentally-conscious customer?”. In addition to the basic rules of waste management and sorted waste collection, the booklet provides useful information to readers on how to reduce the amount of packaging and food waste in their households. The booklet also provides accurate descriptions of the meaning of each standardised pictogram and also of what happens to the different types of waste.

This latest environmental initiative from SPAR Hungary encourages customers, as well as the whole society, to make sure that recoverable waste is put in the sorted waste bins. Joint action has yielded very significant results: for example, together with its customers, the retail chain has collected three times as much waste paper as it used for its own-brand products, and it also recycled the material. According to data from 2020, a 94% rate was achieved in the collection and processing of plastic film packaging waste.

The Nestlé-SPAR guidance brochure is available online at: nestle.hu/hovadobjam  andsparafenntarthatojovoert.hu/hovadobjam, and please visit www.sparafenntarthatojovoert.hu/rovat/a-kornyezetert for additional information and advice.

For more information please contact:

Márk Maczelka, head of communications

SPAR Magyarország Kereskedelmi Kft. ∙ 2060, Bicske, SPAR út

Mobile: +36 20 823 7891 ∙ E-mail: maczelka.mark@spar.hu