Sainsbury’s is trialling a brand new scheme that will pay you to recycle

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We all want to do our bit to help the environment, but it can sometimes be tricky to get organised.

But now, Sainsbury’s is aiming to make recycling as attractive as possible to customers, with a new recycling scheme that will pay you for your leftover packaging.

The supermarket is trialling a new scheme in their Lincoln store, which will see shoppers being able to use a reverse vending machine, that will pay you for your used and unwanted plastic bottles and metal cans.

So how much could you earn from Sainsbury’s recycling scheme?

For every item you return to the vending machine, shoppers will get a 5p voucher in return. And if you indulge in particularly big shops, Sainsbury’s will allow you to return up to 500 items per visit – which means you could, in theory, get a whopping £25 off your shop!

However, if you’re planning on returning your bottles or cans, be warned that the product needs to have originally been bought from Sainsbury’s, or be from a big brand.

This means that you can return items from the likes of Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but that any other items need to be from Sainsbury’s, rather than your local Tesco, Morrisons, or Asda, etc.

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At the moment, the trial is only running in the Lincoln store, but, if successful, it could be rolled out across the UK.

And the supermarket also said that it will be extending the scheme to four other stores over the next few weeks too – although it’s not been confirmed which shops yet.

The announcement comes just a few days after Sainsbury’s also revealed that they will be getting rid of plastic bags on their loose fruit and vegetable items, and bakery goods too.

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This means that from September, shoppers will either have to bring their own bags, or buy a re-usable bag from the store, if they want to pick their own food from the loose fruit and veg items.

Sainsbury’s have also revealed that they’ll be cutting down on plastic in many of their packaged vegetable items too, including getting rid of the plastic trays for tomatoes, asparagus, and carrots.