With effect from January 15, the company will prohibit the use of plastic grocery bags in its stores

Apparently, Americans use around 100 billion plastic bags a year and most of them end up in a landfill. In line with national trends deviating away from single-use plastic, American supermarket chain, Giant Eagle is set to announce a six-month pilot project to eliminate the usage of single-use plastic by 2025. The pilot project would be unveiled in collaboration with the Sustainable Pittsburgh, a nonprofit advocacy and educational group based in Downtown and City of Pittsburgh.

The pilot project of Giant Eagle is likely to start from 15th Jan 2020 at its targeted stores to stop the usage of plastic grocery bags. The targeted stores of the company include Market District store located in Waterworks shopping plaza, O’Hara GetGo convenience store at Freeport Road, and Ohio stores in Cuyahoga County and Bexley. Later, the program to abolish usage of single-use plastic will be extended systemwide.

The O’Hara-based store of Giant Eagle will offer reusable bags for 99 cents instead of single-use plastic. The store will charge 10 cents per paper bag used by customer while assessing consumer interest in the project. It will also support the use of reusable bags with a limited period incentive, Advantage Card for loyalty card holders.

Joylette Portlock, Executive Director, Sustainable Pittsburgh, reportedly stated that the move is an important indication of the fact that there are better ways to step forward for eradicating the use of plastic.

For the uninitiated, Giant Eagle runs 474 stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia.

In a similar vein, in 2018, Kroger Co. had announced abolition of plastic shopping bags usage at its 2,759 supermarkets by 2025. Also, two local Ohio governments, the Cuyahoga County and Columbus suburb of Bexley, had unveiled plans to restrict using plastic grocery bags, which will be effective by January 2020. The Giant Eagle’s pilot project is a move influenced by such initiatives declared by competitors and governments.

Dan Donovan, Spokesman, Giant Eagle, reportedly quoted that the company intends to switch to box containers for drinking water and shifting away from single-serve fresh food containers and plastic straws in the future.

Source links:

https://www.post-gazette.com/business/money/2019/12/17/Giant-Eagle-plastic-grocery-bags-kroger-wolf-GetGo-Sustainable-Pittsburgh/stories/201912160109