Plastic Bags To Be Phased Out At King Soopers, City Market
DENVER (CBS4) - The parent company of both King Soopers and City Market grocery stores announced plans Thursday morning to get rid of plastic bags used for bagging groceries in all of its stores. Kroger plans to eliminate such plastic bags by 2025.
Kroger, the country's largest grocery chain, will gradually transition to reusable bags at its nearly 2,800 locations.
"We listen very closely to our customers and our communities, and we agree with their growing concerns. This decision aligns with our Restock Kroger commitment to live our purpose through social impact," said Mike Donnelly, Kroger's chief operating officer, in a statement.
QFC, a Seattle grocery chain owned by Kroger, will be the first of the stores to eliminate plastic bags. They'll be gone at QFC by 2019.
Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said in a release that Kroger was taking a "bold move that will better protect our planet." The company said it will consult shoppers and NGOs during the process.
Kroger has also been redesigning milk jugs to use 10 percent less plastic. It switched to the new container in about half of its dairy plants by the end of 2017, and will shift fully to the new containers soon.
Both are part of Kroger's broader effort to slash 90 percent of waste to landfills by 2020.
Other companies are changing their sustainability policies too as more countries and U.S. cities and states clamp down on straws and plastics.
California voters approved a law banning single-use plastic bags in 2016, and the law went into effect last year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a bill that would ban them in that state.
Starbucks, McDonalds, and Dunkin Donuts have all recently promised to eliminate plastics and polystyrene. In July, Starbucks said it would get rid of plastic straws from all of its stores by 2020.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. CNN contributed to this report.)
