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Tesco is using its food delivery lorries to pick up rubbish from stores in an attempt to cut costs. The UK's largest retailer has stopped using waste contractors to pick up and dispose of general rubbish, including unsold food, from its 600 largest supermarkets. Instead, bags of waste are piled into metal wheeled cages lined with clear plastic. These cages are picked up by the same trucks that deliver food to the stores once they have emptied their load. The trucks drop off the rubbish at a waste centre before returning to Tesco's distribution centres to pick up more groceries and food to start the cycle again. A Tesco spokeswoman said the system, which does not involve the smaller vans that make home deliveries to customers, was more environmentally friendly. "We have recently introduced a new way of managing waste in some of our stores, which will remove 20,000 additional trips a year and reduce our carbon emissions by 4.5 tonnes a year." The spokeswoman insisted there was no risk to food hygiene: "We have high standards of hygiene and food safety, and we require all vehicles to be inspected and cleared after every trip, with additional cleaning if required, alongside regular deep cleans." However, notices posted at Tesco's recycling centre, seen by the Guardian, suggest only a quarter of the delivery fleet is sanitised or washed each week, although any driver is able to request a wash for his lorry if he feels it necessary. | 
