WALMART LOSES THE PLASTIC, MOVES TO REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS

The Fort Saskatchewan Walmart has completely removed plastic bags from its checkout counters.

The decision to remove the bags is a part of Walmart's sustainability plan. The plan includes goals such as harvesting wind and solar energy to power their stores, hoping for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2035. Additionally, they wish to drop their global emissions to zero by 2040.

Walmart also pledges to restore at least fifty million acres of land and one million square miles of ocean by 2030.

The problem of plastic bags

Plastic bags entered supermarkets and retail chains during the 1970s and 1980s. Before then, customers used paper bags to bring groceries and other merchandise back home from stores. Retailers switched to plastic bags because they were cheaper.

Americans use roughly 100 billion plastic bags every year. But single-use bags and other plastics pose a variety of environmental dangers.

Plastic production is a major source of fossil fuel emissions that contribute to climate crises and extreme weather events. As of 2020, the US plastics industry was responsible for at least 232 million tons of planet-warming emissions per year, according to a 2021 report by Beyond Plastics. This amount is equivalent to the average emissions from 116 average-sized coal-fired power plants.

A discarded plastic bottle lies on the beach at Sandy Hook, N.J. on Tuesday, April 2, 2019, the same day as a report released by the environmental group Clean Ocean Action found that volunteers picked up more than 450,000 pieces of litter from New Jersey's coastline last year. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

The US plastic industry’s impact on climate change is on track to exceed that of coal-fired power in this country by 2030, the organization projects.

Plastic bags are also a major source of litter and wind up in the ocean, rivers, and sewers and harm wildlife. Plastic bags are the fifth most common type of plastic litter, according to Ocean Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group.

Plastic bags do not biodegrade and only 10% of them are recycled, according to the EPA. When bags are mistakenly placed in traditional recycling bins, they can escape into the environment or jam recycling equipment at material recovery facilities.

Why Walmart is eliminating single-use bags in some states but not others.

The company previously stopped giving out single-use plastic bags in New York and Connecticut and in some areas in Colorado. Walmart offers reusable shopping bags starting at 74 cents for customers without their own bags.

Walmart is trying to get ahead of legislation in some states that are cracking down on plastics. Many customers are also demanding change, and Walmart has outlined corporate environmental goals to achieve zero waste in its US operations by 2025.

These states and others led by Democratic lawmakers have taken more aggressive actions on environmental policies, and Walmart sees an opening to expand its efforts there. Ten states, as well as more than 500 localities around the country, have passed measures to ban or restrict thin plastic and, in some cases, paper bags, according to the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental protection group.

But Walmart does not have a national bag policy.

Walmart and other companies are moving more slowly in states governed by Republicans hostile to reducing plastics and other policies to combat climate change. Twenty states have so-called preemption laws that block municipalities from adopting plastic bag regulations, according to the Surfrider Foundation.

TLPPACKAGING FOR SHOPPING BAGS