One of Canada’s largest grocery retailers announced its plan to eliminate single-use plastic shopping bags from its stores.
Walmart Canada
Walmart Canada plans to bring changes to all of Walmart’s more than 400 Canadian locations by Earth Day 2022.
According to the news release, Walmart will eliminate plastic shopping bags for in-store shopping along with online grocery pickup and delivery orders.
The national roll-out follows a successful 10-store pilot that began in August 2021.
The pilot program diverted nearly 6 million plastic bags from being used and once the program is in place across the country, it will prevent approximately three-quarters-of-a billion plastic bags from entering circulation each year.
Walmart plans to launch a comprehensive customer awareness and education campaign to assist in the transition to a plastic bag-free experience. The retailer says while low-cost reusable bags will be available for purchase, customers will be encouraged to bring reusable options from home to carry out their purchases.
The federal government announced its plans to ban some some single-use plastics like grocery bags in 2020.