By Maxime Fischer, Tymur Tur, Petra Lovíšková and Lynn Klang
It started as a simple assignment: track your own plastic waste for a few weeks and see what it tells you. As part of the course, last semester, at the University of Limerick, the four of us began photographing our household waste week by week. What we expected to be a short exercise in personal reflection turned into something bigger — an entry point into questions about retail responsibility, national climate policy, and what "sustainable consumption" actually looks like on the ground in Ireland.
What our bins told us
Across several weeks of documentation, a pattern emerged quickly. Most of what we could reasonably reuse or recycle — PET bottles, metal cans, glass jars, cardboard egg containers — was already manageable. The real problem was the plastic we hadn't chosen at all: it had simply come with the product. Cucumbers wrapped in film. Peppers in plastic trays. Bread and pastries bagged in soft plastic. Pre-cut fruit, salad leaves, and multipacks of yoghurt, each wrapped again on top of their individual packaging.
None of this waste came from indulgence. It came from the default way supermarkets package everyday food. That distinction mattered for how we thought about solutions: individual habits like bringing your own bags or choosing solid shampoo bars over bottled versions genuinely help, but they only go so far when the packaging decision has already been made before a product reaches the shelf.
Two supermarkets, two philosophies
To understand that shelf-level decision better, we compared two of Ireland's largest supermarket chains, which we refer to here as Company A and Company B. Both names have been anonymised.
The contrast was stark. Company A publishes no visible sustainability targets or progress data on packaging, and offers customers comparatively few loose or plastic-free alternatives (Company A, n.d.). Its public image on environmental questions has also been shaped by a long-running legal dispute with Revenue over the Plastic Bag Levy (McFetridge, 2015; ShelfLife, 2012) — not exactly a strong signal of environmental commitment.
Company B, part of a larger retail group, tells a different story. It has committed to 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable own-brand packaging by 2025, introduced compostable bags and paper-based packaging in bakery and produce sections, trialled refill and loose-produce stations, and publishes its progress through a public sustainability strategy (Company B, n.d.). It is not a perfect record, but it demonstrates something important: that large-scale Irish retail can move faster on plastic reduction without losing customers.
Where this connects to national policy
Ireland's Climate Action Plan 2024 sets out clear, retailer-relevant targets: a 50% reduction in plastic packaging waste by 2030, 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2035, and an expanded Deposit Return Scheme for bottles and cans (Government of Ireland, 2024). These targets sit within a broader national and EU push toward a circular economy, in which materials are kept in use for as long as possible instead of being discarded (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, n.d.; Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.). They cannot be met by consumer behaviour alone — they depend on retailers redesigning how products are packaged in the first place.
Our project also maps onto three UN Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action, since less plastic production means lower emissions), and SDG 14 (life below water, particularly relevant for an island nation like Ireland). Framed this way, a household waste log stops being a private habit and becomes a small, concrete data point in a much larger policy conversation.
Writing to the retailer
We didn't want the project to end as an internal comparison exercise, so we wrote directly to Company A. In our letter, we shared what our waste documentation showed, laid out the contrast with Company B's approach, and proposed a set of concrete steps: reducing single-use plastic on fruit, vegetables and bakery items; introducing loose-produce and refill stations; publishing clear, time-bound sustainability targets; expanding compostable and paper-based packaging; and joining the Deposit Return Scheme more visibly. Here is the letter in full:
Dear Company A,
We are writing to you as students working on a project focused on plastic consumption and waste management practices. As part of our research, we documented our weekly household plastic waste to analyse which materials can be reduced, reused, or avoided altogether. This evaluation led us to look at how major Irish grocery retailers approach plastic packaging, waste reduction, and sustainable retail practices. Over several weeks, our waste documentation showed that a significant amount of the plastic we disposed of came from major Irish supermarket chains, including you at Company A. What stood out most was the high proportion of single-use plastics, especially for fruits, vegetables, baked goods, trays and film packaging.
When it comes to reducing this type of plastic waste from Company A, we observed that the main issues you are dealing with are a lack of transparency and commitment, an overuse of unnecessary plastics, legal disputes over plastic use, and a lack of any publicly available sustainability plans and strategies. When shopping, we noted that in many cases there were barely any alternatives available for customers who actively want to avoid plastic, such as loose produce or compostable packaging options.
When comparing your methods to those of Company B, the differences became very clear. Company B generates noticeably less plastic waste and has already taken visible steps to reduce unnecessary packaging. They have introduced several plastic-free, compostable, and recyclable alternatives to common plastic waste materials, and have shown that a more ambitious action plan from a large-scale retail company is possible. They have removed many single-use produce bags from their stores and offer reusable and compostable shopping bags to reduce plastic consumption. They also publicly commit to making all of Company B's own-brand packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025. Their documentation and action plan on sustainability is transparent and accessible, which strengthens consumer trust and shows a clear responsibility toward environmental goals.
We believe that you at Company A could take further steps to strengthen your sustainability practices and play a more active role in promoting environmentally responsible shopping for your customers. Company A still relies heavily on avoidable plastic, even for products where plastic is not needed at all. This lack of transparency is concerning, given that you are Ireland's biggest retail chain — your model and its influence on customers is crucial for sustainable progress, both for your company and for how consumers view sustainability in their everyday shopping habits. In addition, your company does not appear to publicly engage with the Deposit Return Scheme, an easy and straightforward step you have yet to take. Company A falls behind in comparison to Company B, and for customers who want to shop more sustainably, the options at Company A are very limited.
This is particularly concerning considering that Ireland is committed to supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We urge you at Company A to remember goals 12 (reducing single-use plastics and promoting reuse, refill, and sustainable packaging systems), 13 (lowering emissions through reduced plastic production and disposal), and 14 (protecting marine environments by reducing plastic entering rivers and coastal areas) in particular. As one of the country's largest retailers, Company A holds significant responsibility and influence in contributing to these goals and setting a positive example.
Furthermore, Ireland's Climate Action Plan 2024 outlines clear national targets that require action from major retailers. These include reducing plastic packaging waste by 50% by 2030, ensuring all packaging is recyclable or compostable by 2035, and expanding reuse and deposit-return systems as part of a national shift toward a circular economy. At the moment, Company A does not visibly align with these targets, while other retailers already do.
Based on our analysis, we would like to recommend the following actions: reduce single-use plastic, especially for fruit, vegetables, and bakery items; introduce loose-produce stations and refill points; set clear public targets with transparent deadlines; collaborate more with regional sustainable suppliers; increase participation in the Deposit Return Scheme; expand compostable and paper-based packaging options; and improve communication around sustainability strategies and progress.
We hope that our findings encourage you at Company A to consider our recommendations. As one of Ireland's most influential supermarket chains, your actions have a strong impact on consumers, on national sustainability goals, and on Ireland's environmental future — in keeping with your own public promise to your customers.
Thank you for your time.
Kindly, Maxime, Lynn, Petra and Tymur
As Ireland's largest retail chain, Company A has an outsized influence on what "normal" packaging looks like for millions of shoppers. That influence is precisely why transparency and public commitments matter — not just for Company A's own footprint, but for shifting the baseline of what customers come to expect from every retailer.
What we took away
What struck us most, looking back, was how quickly a personal, almost mundane exercise — photographing your own rubbish — surfaced a structural issue. Individual choices matter, but they operate inside a system that retailers largely design and that national policy is meant to steer. Closing that gap requires all three actors moving together: shoppers making more deliberate choices, retailers like Company B proving that ambitious packaging targets are commercially viable, and companies like Company A being held to the same standard.
Our project left us with a clearer sense of how everyday consumption research can feed into development and climate discussions that are usually framed at a much larger scale. Sometimes the most useful place to start asking systemic questions is your own kitchen bin.
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This post is based on a group project completed for the course PA4003 – Issues and Concepts in Development at the University of Limerick during the 2025/26 exchange semester, supervised by Dr Nita Mishra.
References
Company A (n.d.) About Company A – Background. URL removed for anonymisation (Accessed 17 November 2025).
Company B (n.d.) Sustainability. URL removed for anonymisation (Accessed: 20 October 2025).
Ellen MacArthur Foundation (n.d.) The Circular Economy: Definition & Model Explained. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview/ (Accessed: 7 November 2025).
Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.) Plastics – Circular Economy (Ireland). Available at: https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/circular-economy/plastics/ (Accessed: 7 November 2025).
Government of Ireland (2024) Climate Action Plan 2024. Available at: https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/climate-action-plan-2024-8ccbde73-e288-4241-8b26-6b4922389f25.pdf (Accessed: 10 October 2025).
McFetridge, D. (2015) 'Way ahead for Company A uncertain', Belfast Telegraph, 9 November. URL removed for anonymisation (Accessed 17 November 2025).
ShelfLife (2012) 'The difference is... we're silent?', 19 October. URL removed for anonymisation (Accessed: 14 November 2025).