Whole Foods, an organic grocery store chain, announced earlier this week that it will stop offering plastic grocery bags to its shoppers by Earth Day, April 22nd. With 270 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, it is estimated that 100 million plastic bags will be kept out of the environment from Earth Day until the end of 2008. In place of plastic bags, free paper bags in four different sizes will be offered, in addition to reusable bags made from recycled plastic bottles (for 99 cents) and canvas bags (for $6.99 to $35). Whole Foods will also give their customers an incentive to bring their own shopping bags by taking 5 cents off their bill for each bag brought. Not bad, eh?
This move by Whole Foods has followed a national and international trend of businesses, cities, states, and countries taxing or banning outright the use of plastic bags. Last year San Francisco became the first United States city to ban petroleum-based grocery bags and Oakland is considering banning plastic grocery bags as well. 30 remote Alaskan villages ban plastic bags. States such as New York and New Jersey require retailers to recycle plastic bags. Retailer Trader Joe's is pushing paper bags over plastic and Ikea's United States stores are charging 5 cents per plastic bag and donate the money to a conservation group! In preparation for hosting the upcoming Summer Olympic Games, China will impose a ban on the lowest-grade plastic bags beginning June 1, 2008, so that they can cut down on what they call "white pollution". In countries like France, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, and Taiwan, the plastic bag has lost its appeal in light of additional taxes and recycling fees that are imposed on the merchants and consumers.
This is a welcome move, because Sierra Club estimates that 100 billion plastic bags are thrown out each year in the United States alone! Worldwatch, an environmental research group, estimates that it takes more than 1,000 years for a non-recyclable plastic bag to break down in a landfill. Combine these sobering facts along with all of the issues related to many countries' dependence on foreign sources of oil, and ceasing the use of plastic bags in retail stores is an idea that really makes sense!
Whole Foods gets one big Green-Sexy endorsement!
The information for this post was derived from "Whole Foods sacks plastic bags" by Bruce Horovitz, USA Today, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 and from "China bans free plastic bags shopping bags" by Christopher Bodeen, The Associated Press, January 2008.
Comments