Overview
- Waitrose has begun applying invisible UV-readable tags to own-label milk bottles nationwide this week.
- The retailer has invested £100,000 in detection units at two large UK recycling centres to capture item-level recycling data.
- The move expands an April collaboration with Polytag, whose tags become visible under UV light for barcode-level tracking through recycling systems.
- Waitrose says the data will benchmark recycling performance, inform packaging design, and underpin discussions with the UK government on industry incentives.
- Reports describe Waitrose as the first major UK supermarket to deploy the tags at scale across much of its fresh dairy range, and shoppers are unlikely to notice any change.