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Tennent’s is to banish all plastic packaging from its packs of cans for the first time in 40 years, the Scottish brewery has announced.
The firm has invested £7million in new machinery which will see the company produce up to 120,000 cans per hour, packaged in fully recyclable cardboard at its Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow.
The investment forms part of a series of “Because Life is Bigger than Beer” initiatives which will remove 150 tonnes of plastic from Tennent’s lager can packs by 2022, including more than 100 million plastic rings.
It is hoped work at the brewery will be completed this spring to pave the way for the company to remove all single-use plastic from its packaging.
Martin Doogan, group engineering manager at parent company C&C Group, said: “Sustainability is at the core of our business and we will always look for ways to innovate and minimise our impact on the environment to play our part in tackling the climate crisis.
“Today’s announcement is the latest step as we work towards our 2022 goal of eliminating single-use plastic from our consumer packaging and our ongoing commitment to environmental best practice in everything we do.
“As part of our commitments around plastics, we continue to be the only brewer who is a member of the UK Plastics Pact, which guides our initiatives and sets stringent additional targets on plastic packaging, waste, and recyclates.
“Together with our new carbon recapture facility and the anaerobic digestion plant, we are well on our way to achieving our pledge to make Wellpark net carbon zero.”
The Tennent’s anaerobic digestion plant has been in operation since October 2019 and allows for on-site treatment of wastewater generated by the brewing process. This improves the quality of wastewater discharged from Wellpark into the water treatment plant at Dalmarnock in Glasgow and the plant also generates biogas which provides some of the energy used to heat the brewery.
