New packaging in JYSK will remove 27 million plastic bags a year

Starting from now, JYSK will change the packaging on bed linen and sheets from plastic bags to FSC^TMcertified paper bands. This will remove 27 million plastic bags each year, and is just another example of JYSK’s sustainability efforts.

Sustainability is an important part of JYSK’s strategy. JYSK is striving to make renewable and more sustainable packaging that is easy to recycle. Now JYSK is taking big steps in reducing plastic, and the next initiative is new packaging for bed linen and sheets, where the plastic has been removed altogether.

A paper band will replace plastic bags. The first products with the new packaging will be in stores now, and in a transition period they will be sold alongside products with the old packaging until the old packaging is sold out.

Eliminating the 27 million plastic packages of bed linen and sheets that JYSK sells every year will save the environment about 475 tons of fossil-based plastics each year.

“Eliminating 27 million plastic bags a year is huge. It’s reducing our carbon footprint, and gives our customers a package that’s easy to recycle at home. If you crumpled up the 27 million plastic bags we are eliminating and threw them on the floor of an average sized JYSK store of about 1200 square meters, the bags would fill the store and pile up over your head,” says Sam Harrington, Sustainability Manager at JYSK.

Easy to recycle

The new packaging is FSC^TM certified material (FSC^TMN001715). FSC^TM is short for Forest Stewardship Council^TM. It is a non-profit organisation and labelling system for wood and paper, which originate from sustainable forestry, where animal and plant life is taken into account. The FSC label concerns both environmental, social and economic responsibility.

“This is a project that I have been working with for several years and we have been through a lot of different packaging types on the way. The strategy was to find a more sustainable package design for bed linen and sheets in a good quality, and I am more than satisfied with the result,” says Kathrine Møller Vinther, Category Manager Bed linen & Sheets at JYSK.

The new packaging will also make it easy for customers to recycle the packaging at home. The paper packaging can be recycled in the paper bin, while it is often not possible to recycle soft plastic bags in private households.

“We won’t get rid of plastic bags on all types of packaging, as they are there for good reasons, and these 27 million plastic bags are of course just a small part of the general use of plastic both by JYSK and by the world. However, all small initiatives matter, and we will continue the work to reduce plastic as much as possible,” says Packaging Development Specialist Lars Høgh Jensen.