ROBERTS Bakery has launched the UK’s first – and only – bread packaging that goes straight into the home recycling bin.

The new Bloomer range packaging was developed to overcome confusion of how and what to recycle, reducing the 10,736 tonnes of hard-to-recycle packaging made by bakeries each year.

This is the equivalent weight of the Eiffel Tower or 60 blue whales, and despite plastic bread bags being classed as recyclable at larger stores, the majority ends up in landfill.

Roberts’ 100 per cent recyclable-at-home bag simply goes into the paper – or mixed – recycling bin to be collected from home.

The Bloomer range includes Heroic Wholemeal, Wondrous White and Seriously Seeded.

According to Defra figures, 70,536 tonnes of Cheshire West and Chesters household waste was not recycled in 2016-17 – 42 per cent of all household waste in the year. Its recycling rate for 2016-17 is 64 per cent.

Roberts’ MD Stuart Spencer-Calnan said: “It’s incredible that there is so much confusion of what to recycle and how to do it. With our new packaging, we have made a small yet significant step towards overcoming this, and we are calling for other bread manufacturers to do the same.

“Only by making it easy will we change consumer behaviour for the better and increase rates of recycling that we so desperately need.”

He added that the latest bag is not yet the perfect solution, but that will come following phase two investment in early 2019 as more lines are added.

“It’s a bread bag for an ‘eco-worrier,’ he said. “Ordinary people looking for everyday recycling support.”

The bag is 85 per cent recyclable paper with a transparent window made from 15 per cent recyclable film, but is expected to move to a 100 per cent paper bag within months.