We also know that each bag has a lifespan of up to 1 000 years.

Although plastic is really useful, it is a pollutant, often non-recyclable and contributes to emissions. At TFG we want to reduce the use of plastic bags. This is not as simple as it sounds.

Our next step was to join the South Africa Plastics Pact and commit to their roadmap to 2025. We support a circular system where we capture the value of plastic materials by keeping plastics in the economy but out of our environment.

To date, we have been able to design more standardised bags across our brands.

We are phasing in a new specification of plastic bag that is made from 100% post-consumer recyclate. All our bags were changed to the material LDPE that is more recycled and recyclable in South Africa. We moved from 38 different sizes of bags to 6 size variations which reduces the waste when making the bags and maximise the usage of the plastic roll the bags are printed on.

We also removed the small gusset at the bottom of the bag to reduce the plastic used when making the bag.,/p>

100% of TFG Africa plastic packaging is recycled.

At TFG Australia we are committed to more efficient and sustainable packaging. Our store bags are now in the process of transitioning over to certified sustainably sourced paper and are currently in stores. We also investigated using biodegradable online packaging but found that our current infrastructure does not enable home composting. This means our packaging would still end up in landfill sites. As an interim measure we have moved from 80% recycled input materials to 100% and updated our messaging to encourage customers to recycle these. We are also investigating our product packaging within our supply chain to be more efficient and, where possible, recycled.

Read more about our efforts in Australia to reduce waste HERE.