Plastic packaging is one of the biggest problems for both online and physical retailers and consumers are increasingly unhappy about its use. That’s why the latest move from N Brown is important. It’s making further strides in its sustainability programme by rolling out innovative dissolvable packaging for its garments from this month.

The JD Williams, Jacamo and Simply Be brands owner will become the largest online retailer in the UK to use Hydropol-powered Polymer packaging, to reduce plastic waste while, importantly, also preventing “recycling confusion”.

With plastic film wrapping among the biggest causes of recycling contamination in the UK, N Brown said its chosen packaging can be recycled alongside paper, plastic, metal or food “without any risk of contamination”.

It added consumers can put Polymax packaging in their black bins, “where it will safely biodegrade, or in their recycling bins where it will dissolve”. It can also be dissolved in hot water, “leaving no harmful microplastics behind”.

The retailer said it expects that conventional plastic use will be reduced by 44% once its new packaging format is rolled out across all own-brand products.

If used globally, the manufacturer estimated that around 25 million tonnes of conventional, hard-to-recycle packaging could be prevented from entering the environment each year.

Sarah Welsh, CEO of Retail at N Brown Group said: “Reducing our impact on the environment while ensuring a high-quality product experience for our customers is something we take very seriously. Packaging has always been a key area of innovation for us as it makes up a significant proportion of the plastic that is used across our operations.

“[This] is a really exciting product that offers us the ability to package our clothes effectively without the use of conventional plastic and provides our customers with multiple easy and environmentally friendly disposal options”