Iceland will be extending its market-first trial of the Diebold Nixdorf reverse vending machines across England, following positive results from London locations.

The Food Warehouse Wolverhampton, which is part of the Iceland Food Group, will be trialling the machine at its Peel Centre store on Stafford Street for the next six months from today.

Reverse vending machines reward individuals for recycling, by providing money or vouchers in return for empty containers. The Food Warehouse Wolverhampton’s reverse vending machine will accept Iceland’s empty plastic beverage bottles and repay customers with a 10p voucher for each recycled bottle to be used in store.

Iceland’s in-store trials come ahead of the launch of the national Deposit Return Scheme which is expected to be launched in the next few years. The aim is to understand customer reaction to a Deposit Return Scheme and provide the government and industry with insights that will support the creation of a national scheme.

“Today’s announcement is a further step in our commitment to tackling the issue of plastic pollution globally, following our pledge to eliminate plastic packaging from all of our own label products by the end of 2023,” said Iceland Food Group’s managing director Richard Walker.

“While our initial trial in London has been a success, we feel it is important to include insights from consumers elsewhere in the UK to get a better understanding of the challenges we might face. Through our trials, we hope to understand how to make it easier for people to act in an environmentally conscious way while tackling the threat of the millions of plastic bottles that go unrecycled every day,” Walker concluded.

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