London, UK [September 16, 2025] - Today, Break Free From Plastic released a new report ‘Supermarket Audits: Stores' Untapped Potential in Fighting Plastic Pollution’, the first-ever global snapshot of the retail sector’s business practices in stores, focusing on their pivotal role in the global plastic pollution crisis.
From August 28 to November 15, 2024, 496 individual audits of 247 retailers in 27 countries were conducted by volunteers from BFFP member organisations, as part of the supermarket audits. Through this global citizen science initiative, BFFP found that stores are doing the bare minimum to reduce their single use plastic footprint, except where strong legislation compels them to.
These citizen science supermarket audits are inspired by BFFP’s successful Brand Audit project, which identified the world's top corporate plastic polluters over the past six years.
Here are the key findings from the report:
- Stores are performing poorly in adopting business practices that reduce plastic pollution, apart from where legislation requires them to do so. Nonetheless, we found examples of every positive business practice implemented somewhere in the world, highlighting their feasibility and acceptability to consumers.
- Hardly any stores around the world have implemented simple plastic pollution positive actions such as bulk loose dry goods section (only 14% of audited stores do this) and removing plastic carrier bags for fresh produce (only 11%).
- 44% of audited stores have bottle deposit schemes, but those are largely attributed to audits in Germany, where of audited stores 96% have them as required by German law. Outside of Germany, only 17% of stores have such initiatives. This underscored how essential legislation is for driving plastic pollution reduction measures.
- 58% of audited stores around the world have no single-use carrier bags available at check out, or place a small charge on them. This is likely due to the widespread regulations to reduce plastic bags around the world - over a 100 countries have them.
- 53% of all audited stores globally have canvas shopping bags for sale as a reusable alternative to plastic bags.
Supermarkets are key midstream players in the plastic lifecycle – they lie at a critical junction between producers and consumers, and have significant influence on product producers and consumer behaviour. Yet the role of the supermarket sector in plastic pollution, and its potential for positive change, has been largely overlooked.
BFFP found that a majority of supermarkets successfully prevent one type of plastic pollution by not providing free single-use carrier bags at checkout. Yet, plastic-conscious practices such as bulk dry goods sections, deposit return systems for beverage bottles, deli and butcher counters that allow customers to bring their own containers, and alternatives to plastic produce bags are rarely found in stores around the world.
The report calls on supermarkets to leverage their unique market position to implement comprehensive plastic reduction strategies – these can influence how and what consumers buy, and can reduce plastic waste generation and plastic pollution globally. Supermarkets can also drive supplier innovation and plastic reduction through ambitious targets and procurement policies, while supporting reusable packaging infrastructure, such as existing bottle deposit schemes. Supermarkets should not wait for legislation to act. In the face of the global plastic crisis, which is harming human health, the climate, and the environment, the entire sector needs to urgently address its plastic use.
As negotiations on a global plastic treaty are ongoing, this report offers critical insights into how supermarkets can do so much more in averting the plastic crisis. The study hopes to expand annually and build a comprehensive dataset with more countries and retailers to showcase the best practices and pressure supermarkets to play a proactive role in mitigating the plastic pollution crisis.
QUOTES FROM BFFP MEMBERS
Maria José García Bellalta, founder, Fundación El Árbol, Chile
In recent years, Chile has adopted significant policies, including the Plastic Bag Ban Law (2018) and the Law on Single-Use Plastics and Plastic Bottles (2021), to address plastic pollution. Yet 20 recent audits of supermarkets and convenience stores across two regions reveal that compliance is inconsistent. Large supermarkets have stopped distributing single-use plastic bags, yet many continue to sell so-called “reusable” plastic bags, which ultimately end up as waste once damaged. Smaller convenience stores still freely provide plastic bags to customers, with little to no oversight or enforcement. With Chile’s weak legislation and enforcement mechanisms, stronger and more inclusive measures are needed to address plastic pollution across establishments, accompanied by citizen and retailer education. Most importantly, effective oversight and meaningful sanctions are essential to ensure compliance and to foster real change.
Maite Cortés, Executive Director of the Jalisco Environmental Collective, Mexico.
It is very important that in supermarkets, but also in any other point of sale, consumers have access to products that come in truly circular packaging. This requires redesigning product packaging and making it returnable. As consumers, we want products that are not designed to be disposable because they cause plastic particles to migrate into food.
Daru Setyorini, Executive Director, ECOTON, Indonesia
Plastic overproduction is fueling the triple planetary crisis, and supermarkets have been flooding us with plastic-packed products. Retail chains generate up to five times more packaging waste than traditional shopping — much of it from individually wrapped foods, plastic-bottled drinks, and disposable bags. We saw some supermarkets provide reusable options, but it’s too little and there is a lack of promotion by supermarkets. We want more! We need supermarkets to lead in replacing single-use plastics with locally sourced, plant-based materials and reusable containers. Make sustainable choices accessible, visible, and affordable. We demand eco-friendly packaging in every aisle, so that every purchase moves us closer to a healthier, zero-waste future.
Edith Monteiro, Adansonia.Green, Senegal
Every aisle in the supermarket can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Choosing less plastic means choosing a healthier future.
Emma Priestland, Corporate Campaigns Coordinator, Break Free From Plastic
This first ever snapshot of global supermarket business practices clearly shows that the sector has a long way to go in preventing plastic pollution. Supermarkets around the world are heavily reliant on single-use plastics, and this overconsumption is a key reason we are in a pollution crisis today. By implementing some simple and proven measures, stores can massively reduce their plastic footprint, and help their customers avoid unnecessary plastic - good for their health and the environment!
Note to the editors:
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Press Contacts:
Emma Priestland, Corporate Campaigner, Break Free from Plastic: emma@breakfreefromplastic.org
About Break Free From Plastic – #BreakFreeFromPlastic is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 3,500 organizations representing millions of individual supporters around the world, have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. BFFP member organizations and individuals share the values of environmental protection and social justice, and work together through a holistic approach to bring about systemic change. This means tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain—from extraction to disposal—focusing on prevention rather than cure and providing effective solutions. www.breakfreefromplastic.org
