In an effort to further reduce its impact on the environment, Red River Co-op food stores will no longer offer single-use plastic grocery bags at checkout stands at their nine food stores starting on Earth Day on April 22.
“Last year, we sold over 2.2 million bags,” said Sara Fournier, Vice-President of Food and Pharmacy Operations. “We believe that this Earth Day is a great opportunity to move away from single-use plastic bags at our checkouts and offer reusable options to our customers.”
Red River Co-op began encouraging reuse over single use plastics in 2018 when they started charging for plastic grocery bags. In the first year, three million plastic bags were diverted from landfill, a reduction of 54 percent over the previous year. To further the impact on the local environment, Red River Co-op pledged to donate the profit from each sale to local green living non-profit, Green Action Centre to support their food waste reduction and composting educational programming. From there, a partnership formed and the co-operative and the non-profit continue to support the work each does for the environment.
“Our current and growing reliance on plastics is not sustainable, as very little of the disposable plastic products used are recycled, despite years of recycling efforts and programs,” said Colleen Ans, Living Green Living Well Coordinator with Green Action Centre. “We fully support the elimination of single-use plastic bags and a switch to reusables. The focus must remain on reduction, not simply ‘better disposables’ like paper that is recyclable but may also have a large carbon footprint.”
Red River Co-op members and customers are encouraged to bring reusable bags to shop at their food stores. They have reusable totes and bag options for sale in-store, including a reusable cloth bag for 25 cents per bag available at the tills in case customers forget their reusable bags from home.
