Walmart Canada to eliminate single-use plastic bags
Canadian Plastics
Canadian Plastics PackagingThe phased approach will see the retailer make the change in all of its more than 400 Canadian locations by Earth Day 2022.
Photo Credit: CNW Group/Walmart Canada Corp.
Walmart Canada has announced plans to eliminate single-use plastic shopping bags for all in-store purchases and online grocery pickup and delivery orders.
In a Dec. 7 news release, Walmart Canada officials say the phased approach will see all of its more than 400 Canadian locations make the change by Friday, April 22, which is Earth Day 2022.
Officials say the move will make Walmart Canada one of the largest grocery retailers in the country to make this change.
The national roll-out follows a 10-store pilot that began in August 2021. Walmart Canada officials say the pilot received “overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers and associates” and diverted nearly 6 million plastic bags.
In advance of the change, Walmart Canada says it will launch a “comprehensive customer awareness and education campaign” that will encourage customers to bring reusable options from home to carry out their purchases. Other reusable options will also be available for purchase, if needed.
The move follows a series of other moves that Walmart Canada has undertaken to cut single-use plastics usage, including eliminating plastic wrap from organic banana bunches and single peppers, increasing post-consumer recycled content in the packaging holding baked goods, removing 420,000 pounds of expanded polystyrene annually by introducing new packaging for sausage trays, and eliminating single-use plastic straws in-store and replacing them with paper straws.
