Save-On-Foods and Ocean Wise have fused a partnership around Plastic Free July to take action against plastic pollution. The partnership aims to provide consumers with easy action items meant to inspire lifestyle changes that will significantly reduce their use of plastics that end up in landfills and oceans.
On June 20, 2022, the government of Canada announced its plan to ban six single-use plastic items including checkout bags, cutlery, hard-to-recycle food containers, ring carriers, stir sticks and straws. The plan comes into effect through 2023 and is expected to eliminate over 1.3 million tonnes of hard-to-recycle plastic waste and more than 22,000 tonnes of plastic pollution.
“Our customers raise important questions and bring forward local, provincial, national, and even global opportunities for our company to make a difference. We listen to them and take action,” said Darrell Jones, president, Save-On-Foods. “It is critical that we all do our part to protect our environment,” added Jones. “The choices we make can play a critical role in what ends up in our ocean. Grocers, like Save-On-Foods, can also play an important role in making it easier than ever to make plastic free choices.”
As part of their commitment to sustaining our resources and reducing pollution, Save-On-Foods has offered plastic bag collection bins for over 30 years. Through this recycling program, 450 Tonnes of plastic film and plastic bags are kept out of our landfills and waste streams every year. Save-On-Foods was also one of the first Canadian retailers to voluntarily implement a charge to consumers for single-use plastic and paper checkstand bags; reducing the company’s plastic bag use by 38% in the first full year. To date, this has stopped over 250 million plastic bags from ever entering our system and ultimately hitting our landfills. The company also recently announced its plan to stop printing its paper flyer, reducing an estimated 8 million pounds of flyers from the environment.
Save-On-Foods has set its sights on creating the first zero-waste conventional grocery store in Canada by 2025. While this is an ambitious task Save-On-Foods set a similar goal in 2017 to reduce Food Waste by 50 per cent and achieved that goal six years ahead of schedule.
