PLANET

Eliminating Non-Clothing Waste

As one of our main sources of non-clothing waste, reducing product packaging is a priority for us. We’re taking steps to do this through smarter design and new initiatives within our business.

Shrinking single-use plastic with smarter design

We're finding ways to trim plastic and other waste from our product packaging. We’re bringing in new hangers that are either made from recycled materials or cardboard. For items that need packaging for hygiene reasons (like underwear), we’ve removed the plastic hook and slimmed down the bag. Even small steps like these really make a difference to how much plastic gets used.

Clothes hangers make up almost two-thirds of the single-use plastic volumes used within Primark. Durable new hangers, made from a minimum of 90% certified recycled polypropylene, are being brought into main clothing ranges, with completion due in 2027. An increasing number of hangers in our baby range have now converted to certified recycled card, and we are converting lingerie and swimwear hangers from plastic to cardboard. This project will be rolled out by the end of 2025.

Other packaging initiatives

Plastic film used to protect garments in transit: Since September 2022, we’ve collected 2,178 tonnes so that it can be recycled into new film.
Bra accessories and headphones: We are transitioning to easier-to-recycle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with a minimum of 30% recycled content.
Baby bodysuits: We have reduced the packaging size by approximately 20%.

Measuring our progress

Since 2009, we’ve been swapping out unnecessary plastics across our operations. We recently established a baseline for all the packaging in our business so that we can track our progress.

There continues to be challenges around the elimination of single-use plastic from our business. This is because of practical limitations, technical constraints, and the absence of suitable alternatives – for example, hygienic shrink wraps on some skincare and beauty products are currently required.

Primark packaging baseline

Recycling and managing our own waste

We diverted 95% of the waste we produce from our own operations from landfill over the past 12 months. We continue to educate colleagues, both in retail and head offices, on how non-clothing and clothing waste can be reused or recycled and have put textile takeback boxes in our offices. We are working to standardise waste management across Primark stores, which include a global rollout of waste bins to enable segregation and recycling in every store, office and depot.

You can read more about our efforts to reduce textile waste here.