Icelandic Supermarket Offers In-Store Packaging Recycling

A local supermarket chain has begun a novel approach to reducing waste generated by their own products: in-store recycling.

As RÚV reports, the plan is simple enough: after buying your products at the supermarket Krónan, you can unpack your goods right in the store, and then discard the packaging in a bin. From there, the packaging is sorted and sent off for recycling.

As a tremendous amount of household waste is comprised of such packaging, the hope is that this measure will help reduce waste and increase the recycling of discarded materials.

“Waste is not just our issue,” Krónan managing director Gréta María Grétarsdóttir told reporters. “It’s not just something we at Krónan need to address, but rather all of us.” She also says that Krónan have been in talks with suppliers, in the hopes of reducing packaging waste at the source.

“Hopefully in the future, we can do much better than today,” she says. “But hopefully this is a step in the right direction.”