Environmentally-friendly zoo aims to cut down on its single-use plastic

The zoo park in Alfriston has decided to join with the revolution and is starting to ditch the plastic.

It’s out with the old and in with new, as Drusillas begins the process of replacing their stock with plastic free alternatives.

Catering outlets are often the biggest sources of single-use plastic, so Drusillas made the conscious choice to begin their environmentally friendly journey there.

Malcolm Yarwood, catering and retail manager, said, “It’s a real challenge to try and rid yourself of plastic; it’s literally everywhere! But we are not ones to shy away from a challenge, and we want to do our bit to help protect our planet.

“The process is going to take time, it’s not something that will just happen overnight. We are running down our stock levels, and gradually replacing products with plastic free alternatives.”

Currently Drusillas has replaced all plastic straws with biodegradable straws; these can be composted and will biodegrade within two weeks.

Additionally, all of Drusillas’ branded coffee cups, food boxes, cutlery, coffee lids and coke lids have now been replaced with plastic free alternatives.

Mr Yarwood, said, “Now we have started changing things, we are hoping to continue down this path.

“Next on the agenda are napkins, plastic cups, coke cups, poly boxes and poly cups.

“These items are a work in progress and we hope to have them all changed over as soon as we can.

“As I mentioned before, it is a slow process and it does take time to switch over to sustainable products, but we are working on it and we are determined to make the transition.”

Excessive plastic packaging has been making the headlines more and more. Earlier this year, Marks and Spencer pulled its cauliflower steak after a backlash over the plastic packaging Lidl recently got into hot water for selling pre-peeled onions coated in protective plastic. And Iceland supermarket recently announced that it aims to go plastic-free by 2023.