UK-based retailer, The Co-operative Food has announced the reduction of tint in all of its own-brand plastic colored milk bottle tops. With the new initiative, the tops can be recycled into new bottles.

The retailer, which sells 202 million bottles of milk every year, will increase the plastic bottles recycled content from 10 to 30% helping to produce every year an extra 4,500t of recyclable material, as part of its new initiative, packagingnews.co.uk reported.

The Co-operative Food environment manager Iain Ferguson said protecting the environment is a key part of its ethical plan and it has completed the move on all of its own-brand milk bottles.

According to Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) research, tint reduction in milk bottle tops allows to achieve higher recycled content in the bottles, while reducing the use of virgin plastic and ensuring efficient use of resources.

In March last year, the group has announced plans to reduce the packaging of its own-brand cordial range by around 40% and will switch to double concentrate squash from the ordinary in order to save 83t of packaging weight a year resulting in 337t of CO2 savings annually.