Customers’ war on waste brings end to Woolworths SA’s plastic egg box trial
Woolworths South Africa has decided to pull the plastic egg boxes from their shelves following a storm on social media last week.
Meaghan Essel posted this photo on Facebook with her concern of the new plastic egg box packaging sold at Woolworths South Africa. The company has since said it would remove the egg boxes from its shelves within seven days. Picture: Facebook
The sale of plastic egg boxes at Woolworths South Africa will be discontinued over the next week following negative feedback from customers.
Last week, a Facebook post, uploaded on January 10, went viral, with about 1 500 reactions and nearly 1 000 shares as a customer criticised the Woolworths for the “environmental irresponsibility” of selling plastic egg containers when “cardboard is biodegradable”.
On January 13, Woolworths responded to the feedback, and a statement posted on its Facebook page read: “The Eggyplay toy egg box is a trial. Based on your feedback, we’ve decided to end the trial as soon as we can. The boxes should be out of stores in 5 to 7 days.
“Any remaining plastic egg boxes [you can return them to our stores] will be donated through our MySchool programme.
“Woolies remains committed to designing recyclable packaging and to continue to listen to you, our customers.”
Meaghan Essel, who posted the Facebook post that went viral last week, noted as an update in the original post that “WOOLWORTHS SA has discontinued the plastic egg box trial”.
Read Essel’s original post here:
Essel was not the only customer to complain about the boxes, and a number of other customers also took to the Woolworths SA Facebook page to criticise the egg boxes:
However, not everyone was against the egg boxes:
Another customer on January 14 posted on the Woolworths SA Facebook page questioning the recyclability of the plastic packaging of some of Woolworths’ products:
A post from a customer on the Woolworths SA Facebook page. Picture: Facebook
Woolworths SA responded that the “issue with packaging waste is on top of our agenda” and that the On Pack Recycling Labelling aimed to “assist customers to separate from their waste all packaging that is currently widely recycled”. Woolworths SA further stated that it was working with the packaging and recycling industry to develop more solutions.
Read the full response posted on Facebook here:
Woolworths SA’s response to a customer’s post on its Facebook page. Picture: Facebook
– Caxton News Service
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