Sainsbury's announces reverse vending recycling trial

Sainsbury's is testing out reverse vending recycling machines, enabling customers to return plastic bottles and drinks cans in exchange for 5p coupons towards their shop.

It is possible to bring back up to 500 items per visit. The containers deposited must be available to buy in Sainsbury's.

The supermarket giant made the announcement on Twitter, revealing that the trial is running in its Lincoln superstore. Plans are afoot to to extend it to four more stores in the next few weeks.

Iceland and Morrisons have also been testing out reverse vending machines. The former reported that shoppers earned more than £30,000 by recycling plastic bottles during a trial. They got a voucher worth 10p for every deposit of a bottle bought at stores in Wolverhampton, Mold, Fulham and Musselburgh (Iceland's head office, in Deeside, also took part in the pilot).

Richard Walker, Iceland MD, commented: "It's clear from the results that consumers want to tackle the problem of plastic head on, and would be in support of a nationwide scheme.”