Whole Foods to End Plastic Bag Use by Earth Day

According to yesterday's article on sustainablebusiness.com, Whole Foods will discontinue offering plastic bags at checkout effective this Earth Day. The first U.S. supermarket to commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags, Whole Foods Market declared January 22 "Bring Your Own Bag Day" and distributed over 50,000 reusable shopping bags to customers at the checkouts to celebrate the announcement. A.C. Gallo, co-president and chief operating officer for Whole Foods Market, said "More and more cities and countries are beginning to place serious restrictions on single-use plastic shopping bags since they don't break down in our landfills, can harm nature by clogging waterways and endangering wildlife, and litter our roadsides. Together with our shoppers, our gift to the planet this Earth Day will be reducing our environmental impact as we estimate we will keep 100 million new plastic grocery bags out of our environment between Earth Day and the end of this year alone."

We have noticed that many supermarkets like Trader Joe's offer incentive to encourage customers to bring their own bags, such as drawings for grocery certificates. Whole Foods offers customers now a 5-10 cent refund at the checkout, but they would be well advised to offer similar promotions and contests for customers. Do you bring your own reusable bags, and how to you remind yourself each time you go shopping? Is your supermarket sustainable? We have been doing our part all this year by keeping extra shopping bags in the back of the car, and then we are "green to go." Happy green shopping!

Note: we recently read about the largest Whole Foods to open in New York City, in the Bowery, and plan on visiting next time we're in the city. The stores features an eco-friendly refrigerating system, recycled building materials, energy efficient lighting, and electricity purchased with wind energy credits. (There are also discounts on coffee if you bring your own mug and pies when you bring back the plates for the made-from-scratch pies.) At 71,000 square feet, you shouldn't have to worry about anyone bumping into your shopping cart.