Girl gets supermarket to vow to stop selling magazines with throwaway plastic toys

A young girl from Wales is on a mission to stop kids’ magazines from offering plastic toys, and its gaining attention.

10-year-old Skye, from Gwynedd, is campaigning to stop magazines giving out disposable toys. She so far has managed to persuade Waitrose to join in after they agreed to boycott the magazines that do.

The supermarket will phase out magazines containing these throwaway plastics and will lobby publishers to rethink their “pointless plastic” and opt for more sustainable fun.

The ban will not extend to educational or reusable art objects, such as collectables, colouring pens and pencils, as they are able to be used again and again.

Marija Rompani, who is responsible for sustainability and ethics at Waitrose said to Sky News, “While we know these magazines are popular with children, some of the unnecessary plastic attached to them has become really excessive. Many in the younger generation really care about the planet and are the ones inheriting the problem of plastic pollution.

“We really urge publishers to find alternatives, and other retailers to follow our lead in ending the pointless plastic that comes with children’s magazines.”

Waitrose has written to the publishers of these magazines, urging them to rethink their strategy and giving them eight week’s notice before they will refuse to sell issues with unneeded plastic.

This is in tandem with the supermarket’s public push to reduce their single-use plastic output. They have stopped selling Christmas crackers with plastic toys or glitter and is attempting to make all its own label plastic packaging recyclable.

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