Paper Takes Over The High Street

Submitted by: Two Sides Nordics May 8, 2025

From Costa Coffee to M&S, we look at the latest retailers to switch to more sustainable packaging solutions.

It’s no secret that most food and drink brands have either converted their product packaging to fibre-based materials or are investing in finding out the best way to do it, but high street retailers are also working hard to reduce the amount of plastic they use in their packaging.

Whether it’s clothing brands, cosmetics companies or coffee shops, the challenge is on to make their packaging a lot easier to recycle, making a significant contribution to the circular economy and appeal to a much more environmentally aware customer base.

Here are three of the latest examples:

Aveda

The personal care sector is one of the high street’s biggest users of plastic packaging, with the task of producing fibre-based containers with similar properties to plastic still proving challenging. However, there are steps in the right direction, such as Estée Lauder’s Aveda brand announcing the global launch of a recyclable sample sachet, said to reduce plastic by over 80% compared to its 10ml plastic tubes.

“The redesign and global expansion of these sachets represents a powerful multi-year collaboration driven by the intersection of innovation, design for sustainability principles, and our desire to create meaningful experiences for our customers worldwide,” said Nicole Call, Director, Global Packaging Development at Aveda. “We are proud to demonstrate that sustainability and high performance can go hand-in-hand, and it’s our hope that by integrating principles of recyclability and sustainability in packaging, we can continue to inspire meaningful change within the beauty industry.”

Marks & Spencer

The iconic staple of the British high street has begun a long journey to replacing its clothing packaging with paper-based materials, eradicating the use of thousands of tonnes of plastic every year. The entire Marks & Spencer’s Men’s Essentials range is now available in FSC-approved paper packaging, including paper hooks, which can be easily recycled at home.

With 20 million pairs of socks sold each year and one in five UK men purchasing their underwear and nightwear from M&S, it’s a significant move, and one that’s expected to be followed by more M&S packaging being converted to paper.

“We have a responsibility to do the right thing when it comes to our packaging by reducing unnecessary plastic,” said Katharine Beacham, head of sustainability in clothing and home at M&S. “This one small change to our men’s essentials range will make a huge difference by removing over five million units of plastic from our supply chain.”

Costa Coffee

With 2.5 billion paper cups thrown away in the UK every year, the various coffee chains on the high street are constantly looking for more effective ways to ensure more of those cups are recycled and don’t end up in landfill. It’s not an impossible task: a report by Valpak commissioned by The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that the UK has the capacity to recycle all the paper cups placed on its market.

The latest high street recycling initiative is an app-based scheme developed by Bower that offers customers a 5p reward for recycling their cup, using AI technology to identify it before crediting the money to an online account. Along with Costa Coffee, McDonald’s, Greggs, Pret a Manger and Caffe Nero have also signed up to a trial run in Cardiff.

“We’re excited to support Cardiff’s groundbreaking initiative,” said Bower’s co-founder Berfin Mert. “Thanks to the AI object detection technology, consumers can instantly identify and recycle their paper cups and get rewarded for their good acts. This collaboration showcases how technology, brands and communities can come together to tackle waste and drive real environmental change.”

To read the full Valpak report, go to bit.ly/Valpak-Paper-Cup-Report