Started in 2018, the Single Use Plastics Project (an initiative of the European Outdoor Group), has sought to research and assess the impact of plastic bags in the supply chain of outdoor clothing and equipment, and to work swiftly towards making a meaningful impact on the problem.
Since the start of the programme, we’ve delivered more than 2 million products without plastic. This has allowed us to collect over 40,000 kgs of plastic and ensure it is properly recycled.
A step in the right direction
Within the outdoor industry the largest proportion of single use plastics comes from our product poly bags.
Our proposals are not intended to be the solution to the plastic problem, but rather a collective step in the right direction.
Making the best use of the material already available on the market in a way that reduced waste transported to landfill or incineration, and which ensured that the material retained much of its value on the global market via recycling.
Capturing polybags, cutting contamination
By creating a separate and specific route for our polybags, one where they are collected in distribution centers (and not sent directly to e-commerce customers) or in retail outlets and sent back for collection by dedicated recycling partners, we can capture poly bags before they enter municipal waste streams and thereby minimize the issues associated with contamination of the poly bag waste, and the contamination of household recycling waste streams, to produce reprocessed material which can be sold into the European market.
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We seek to take accountability for our bags and ensure they do not become waste.
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We remove bags at the warehouse—before they are sent to customers.
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We ship products without plastic in easily recyclable paper packaging.
At The North Face we started testing this solution back in 2021 on a small selection of products sold on e-commerce. Given the promising results, we’ve successfully expanded the programme since then, removing polybags from an increasing percentage of the products that are dispatched from our warehouse locations in Europe.
We are now delivering the majority of our products without a plastic polybag in the UK and will be transitioning to the same scenario for the rest of Europe very soon.