Washington, DC – CVS, Target, Walmart, Kroger, and Walgreens have teamed up to “reinvent the plastic retail bag,” according to a press release on the new Beyond the Bag Initiative. The companies have committed $15 million toward the effort which hopes to identify, test, and implement design solutions and models that fit the purpose of the current retail bag. The three year consortium welcomes other retailers to join in the effort.
In response to today’s news, Greenpeace Global Plastics Project Leader Graham Forbes said:
“We don’t need to reinvent single-use plastic bags, we need to eliminate them. It does not require a three year consortium to figure out that reuse is the answer. We cannot solve our environmental and health crises by simply shifting from one disposable bag to another. These retailers should be identifying the best ways to incentivize reuse, whether it be by providing meaningful discounts for their continued use or sanitized bags for people in stores who forget them at home. All over the world programs already exist to swap out reusables and make it easier for customers to embrace them. The world’s largest retailers need to think beyond the throwaway model to truly make a difference for people and the planet.
“Taking action to eliminate single-use plastic bags is a good place to start but retailers need to be dealing with their entire plastic footprint. CVS, Target, Walmart, Kroger, and Walgreens sell billions of unrecyclable plastic-packaged products between their companies. Not only should these retailers be working to move toward reusable bags, they should be fundamentally rethinking the aisles full of disposable plastics that fill their stores and putting pressure on consumer goods companies to phase out plastic.
“Retailers are complicit in the destruction of our planet by continuing to use the fossil fuel industry’s polluting plastics. Plastics are not only worsening climate change and pollution, they are impacting our health and disproportionately hurting communities of color on the frontlines of petrochemical facilities, incinerators, and landfills. Feel good initiatives are not going to cut it — the world’s largest retailers need to end their reliance on single-use plastics and move toward systems of reuse.”
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Contact: Perry Wheeler, Greenpeace USA Senior Communications Specialist, P: 301-675-8766
