Aldi Is Making a Major Change to Its Already Famous Bag Policy

Retailers and grocers across the board are doing their part in reducing their carbon footprint. Most recently, Walmart announced a program that will eliminate single-use plastics during grocery delivery. Fortunately, other grocers are hopping aboard the sustainability train, including Aldi: The store just announced a plan to eliminate plastic shopping bags at more than 2,300 locations across the United States.

According to Aldi’s progress report, the grocer achieved a milestone of eliminating 15 billion bags from landfills by charging for plastic shopping bags in stores last year. Now, Aldi is taking it a step further by becoming the first U.S. retailer to eliminate plastic bags entirely. This will remove an estimated 4,400 tons of plastic from circulation each year.

“As one of America’s fastest-growing retailers, we take our responsibility to lead the industry in sustainability seriously, so our customers don’t have to choose between shopping responsibly and saving money,” said Jason Hart, CEO of Aldi, in a press release.

The grocer is also working to make 100% of Aldi packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025. About 50 tons of plastic have already been eliminated by taking out the clear plastic window on pasta boxes. Plus, per the store’s most recent announcement, Aldi is transitioning to a more sustainable refrigerator system by 2035 with the goal of lowering carbon emissions by 60% each year.

“Eliminating plastic shopping bags from our stores and transitioning to environmentally friendly refrigerant systems not only help us protect the environment, but they also help reduce costs which we then pass on to our customers,” continued Hart in the statement. “These decisions help our customers feel good about shopping at Aldi and our employees feel proud to work here.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

This post originally ran on The Kitchn. See it there: Aldi Is Making a Major Change to Its Already Famous Bag Policy