Just Eat expands trial of home-compostable takeaway box

Just Eat has expanded its trial of Notpla’s fully recyclable and home-compostable takeaway box to 11 restaurants across the UK.

It follows a short trial with three London takeaways last year and will assess the feasibility of rolling out the box more broadly to Just Eat Takeaway.com’s restaurant partners.

Lined with a seaweed and plant composite, the cardboard container is made from tree and grass pulp with no synthetic additives, is fully recyclable and can decompose in four weeks in a home compost. It has been designed to be water-resistant and greaseproof.

Part of the company’s commitment to reduce plastic pollution across the food delivery sector, the trial is expected to stop 30,000 plastic boxes from entering the waste stream.

Just Eat estimates that 500 million plastic takeaway boxes are used across the UK takeaway industry each year, and even if these plastic boxes get reused multiple times, they often end up in landfill.

The project builds on Just Eat and Notpla’s existing partnership, which has also piloted the use of seaweed-based sauce sachets with a variety of restaurants. So far, the trials have stopped over 46,000 plastic sachets from entering customer homes.

Robin Clark, senior director of global partnerships and Sustainability, said: “We’re excited to continue our work with Notpla to create a credible alternative to the plastic box that is recyclable, home-compostable and which degrades in a matter of weeks. It has all the benefits of plastic from a practical point of view but none of the negative environmental impacts. We look forward to expanding the use of the boxes more widely with the aim to roll these out across the UK and our other markets, so that customers across the globe can enjoy their favourite takeaways without the plastic waste.”