Aldi has announced a ban on plastic straws for their own-label drink cartons, the budget supermarket chain has announced.

Aldi will join Sainsbury’s in providing paper straws which will save more than 100 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic each year.  

All own-brand drinks will now come with a paper straw that’s fully recyclable and made from FSC-certified cardboard.

The move is one of many packaging changes Aldi has introduced as it looks to halve the amount of plastic packaging it uses by the end of 2025.

Richard Gorman, Plastics and Packaging Director at Aldi UK, said: “Removing plastic straws from own-brand drinks cartons is another step in our journey to reducing plastic packaging across our products.

“Our customers want environmentally-friendly products, and plastic straws are one thing, in particular, that people want to move away from to help make a difference.”

The change follows a similar move announced by Saisbury’s earlier this week.

The supermarket chain announced it will no longer sell own-brand lunchbox juice cartons with plastic straws.

They say a total of 18.5 million plastic straws will be removed from circulation each year, equating to a 6.6 tonne plastic reduction.

Claire Hughes, Director of Product and Innovation at Sainsbury's said: “As we work to reduce, reuse, replace and recycle plastic packaging, we’re committed to trialling and testing innovative new packaging alternatives for our products."

She added: "Removing 18.5 million straws from circulation each year is a huge achievement and brings us closer to our goal.

“Looking forward, we will continue to work closely with our suppliers, manufacturers, customers and other retailers to reduce the amount of single use plastic across the supply chain, whilst also investing in research and development of materials and technologies.

“We look forward to listening to feedback from our colleagues and customers about this latest packaging move.”

Aldi will now join Sainsbury’s and other supermarkets in eco-friendly initiatives as Waitrose announced it had ditched plastic from its magazines.

Other recent initiatives from the German supermarket brand include the removal of plastic packaging from its entire egg range in England and Wales and switching plastic shrink-wrap on multipack soft drinks cans to cardboard.

Aldi is on track to have all product packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by the end of 2025.