Sustainability June 20, 2022
Supermarket Chain Phasing Out Plastic Bags
Wegmans announced single-use plastic bags will soon no longer be offered at more of its stores. The company plans to remove the disposables from all locations by the end of 2022.
A major supermarket chain is calling time on single-use plastic bags.
Wegmans Food Market, which has 107 stores spread across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts and North Carolina, will no longer provide single-use plastic bags for customers by the end of 2022.
The Gates, NY-headquartered company is eliminating the disposables in phases. As part of that, Wegmans recently announced that it will remove single-use plastic bags from an additional six stores in Virginia and four in North Carolina by July 1, 2022.
Throughout the remainder of the year, Wegmans will continue its phased approach to eliminating single-use plastic bags at its remaining 27 stores in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
“While paper grocery bags will continue to be available for a 5-cent charge per bag, Wegmans’ goal is to shift customers to reusable bags, the best option to solve the environmental challenge of single-use grocery bags,” Wegmans said in a statement. “The amount collected from the paper bag charge will be donated to each store’s local food bank.”
Plastic bag bans, whether by states, cities or businesses, can help create opportunity for promotional products distributors to sell alternatives, like branded totes. Data from Wegmans hints at this: In stores where the company has already eliminated plastic bags, on average, reusable bags or no bags at all are used by customers 75% to 80% of the time.
When single-use plastic bag bans go into effect, this creates advertising potential for any business or organization to give away or sell branded reusable totes to consumers who are suddenly in greater need of reliable bags. Promo products distributors are in a prime position to help such businesses capitalize on the opportunity.
What Can You Do?
Try these three steps to help clients and consumers navigate plastic bag bans.
- Develop a good/better/best pitch of reusable bag options for potential clients.
- Reach out to companies in markets where there are bans to explain the benefits of selling or giving away logoed totes.
- Suggest bundling swag in a branded reusable bag as a practical upsell option.
Beyond Wegmans, other retailers are taking steps to reduce the use of plastic bags. For example, a handful of Walmart, Target and CVS stores in northern California have piloted programs designed to increase the use of reusable bags among shoppers. One of the programs involves a “bags as a service” solution created by California-based promo supplier ChicoBag (asi/44811).
A growing number of cities, municipalities and states in the U.S. have enacted prohibitions on single-use plastic bags in recent years, with New Jersey and Delaware among those starting to enforce strict statewide bans recently.
Proponents of the prohibitions are motivated by environmental concerns, saying the bans help reduce litter and pollution and protect wildlife and natural habitat. Critics have argued the bans have little tangible impact on pollution and come at a cost burden to consumers and businesses. Some studies have even found the bans can backfire.
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