Black plastic trays commonly used for ready meals, fruit and fresh meat are ending up in landfill sites, because their colour makes them ‘invisible’ to electronic sorting machines at recycling depots.
While many of the supermarket giants claim the packaging is recyclable, the black pigment used to make the product more aesthetically-pleasing to customers is not recognised by the machines.
As a result, some 1.3bn black plastic trays are sent to incinerators or landfill sites every year.