Supermarket chains across America continue to move forward in their own green transition, even if issues like decarbonization lag somewhat behind them. This week, we learned that Walmart has launched a pilot program to help you save. Maybe on groceries? Not in this case, but on something you buy whenever you go to the store and will make you save some money.
Walmart pilot program you´ll love: save money on this, and it´s not on groceres
Walmart Canada recently launched a pilot program to recycle customers’ reusable shopping bags. The initiative kicked off in January 2024 at 12 Walmart stores located in British Columbia. The goal of the program is to keep reusable plastic bags out of landfills and prevent them from polluting oceans and waterways.
Through the pilot, customers can bring their clean plastic bags back to participating Walmart locations and drop them in collection bins near store entrances. Walmart will then send the collected bags to recycling partners to be turned into new plastic products.
The reusable bag recycling pilot is part of Walmart Canada’s larger sustainability efforts. The company aims to achieve zero plastic waste by 2025. Recycling programs like this help Walmart work toward that goal while engaging customers in the process.
Walmart recycling program, unveiled: that´s how you save money
Walmart Canada has launched a new pilot program that allows customers to recycle their old reusable shopping bags at participating stores. The goal is to give customers an easy way to keep these bags out of landfills and give them new life.
Customers can bring back any brand of reusable bag, including plastic and fabric bags, to specially marked bins located near the entrances of select stores. Walmart partnered with recycling company TerraCycle to collect and process the bags.
Once collected, the bags are sent to TerraCycle where they are cleaned, melted, and turned into plastic pellets. These pellets are then used to manufacture new consumer products like park benches and fence posts. So those old reusable bags can be recycled into something useful again.
The program provides customers an accessible way to recycle items that typically end up in the trash. By collecting and recycling the bags, it reduces waste and moves Walmart closer to its sustainability goals (the same that the United Nations has set for the industry).
Walmart, a brand committed to the circular economy: the evidence
The used plastic bags collected through the recycling program don’t go to waste. Walmart works with recycling partners to give the bags a new life. The collected bags are transported to facilities where they are washed, shredded, and turned into plastic pellets.
These pellets are then used as raw material to manufacture new plastic products. Walmart aims to incorporate the recycled plastic into creating benches, decking, totes, and other consumer items sold at their stores. By upcycling the used bags into new merchandise, Walmart closes the loop.
The recycled plastic pellets can potentially be used in all types of plastic manufacturing. So the used bags returned by Walmart customers ultimately get transformed into a variety of new plastic goods. Everything from storage containers, pipes, flooring, and automotive parts can contain recycled post-consumer plastic.
By recycling and upcycling the used reusable bags, Walmart diverts plastic waste from landfills and incineration. The program gives customers an easy way to be part of the sustainability solution. Rather than throwing bags away, they can return them to Walmart and know the materials will be put to good use.
You may know this, but programs like the one Walmart has launched have already been approved in other places around the world. Even in the European Union it is mandatory to pay for plastic bags, a measure that is somewhat punitive compared to the one we have seen in this article. Will Costco follow the same path? They have been passing similar measures for some time, so we would not be surprised.
