Our Commitment to You
Our vision of a sustainable future means we will take steps to reduce, reuse, and recycle our resources in order to protect our world for future generations. We are sensitive to environmental issues and we have made changes at our stores and offices as part of our long-term commitment to environmental responsibility and sustainability. For example, we saved 1.5 million kw-hours of electricity annually as a result of the lighting retrofits that we have done in-store.
What does this green lighting initiative represent?*
- 1031 tons of CO2 reduced
- 215 cars off the road
- 115,576 gallons of gasoline saved
- 26,434 tree seedlings grown for 10 years
*2013 Stats Taken from EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator
Our Team
To become a more environmentally-friendly, “greener” company, we created a Recycling Committee in 2010 and have identified Recycling Champions for each of our store locations. The Champions are employee volunteers that are passionate about being good stewards of our planet. It is their responsibility to oversee and implement our recycling program at each location. This program has had an overwhelming success so far, and we’re excited to see it continue to grow!
In Our Fresh Foods Stores and Office:
By Earth Day 2020, we are targeting to eliminate Single Use Plastic Bags and Large Brown Paper Bags from our registers for packing groceries. By doing so, we will save 4.6 million bags each year. We believe this is an important first step towards greener practices in our stores. We instead ask that customers use Reusable Bags to pack groceries, or that they use our FREE Boxes, which are available every day by our checkouts.
Learn more about our Earth Day 2020 Green Initiative.
We offer a Pull-N-Pak® green bags in produce. These are eco-friendly and made up of 30% recyclable materials. Each bag is dispensed one at a time, reducing waste up to 20%.
In addition to bags, stretch wrap in our distribution centers from palettes is recycled through our grocery supplier. White copy paper and shredded paper at our office go through the Recycling Company.
Stats
10.0 tons of Grocery T-sac bags were collected and recycled*
280.4 tons recycled through single-stream collection (this consists of office paper, newsprint, aluminum, metal cans and plastics)*
640 tons of cardboard were baled and recycled***
4,089 gallons of waste cooking oil is collected and reused as truck fuel*
We also offer a variety of eco-friendly household and cleaning products in our stores.*
In produce we recently converted the majority of our Styrofoam packing to biodegradable trays.
On our food bar and Under the Tent, we have switched from Styrofoam to Eco-friendly containers, napkins and paper straws.
During our recent lighting retrofits, we saved 1.5 million kw-hours of electricity annually.
In Our Home & Garden Stores:
Our Eco-Friendly Green Bag is now at each register if you forget your reusable bag! Benefits include:
- It’s made with 30% recycleable materials
- It’s made to carry a larger capacity so that less bags are used to pack your groceries
- It has a special sealed bottom that will not tear/break easily.
Cardboard at our stand alone Home & Garden Centers is recycled along with single stream items.
Stats
570.6 tons of recycled through single stream collection*
84.3 tons of cardboard*
10.6 tons of Horticultural plastics and shrink wrap were recycled (this consists of plastic pots and plant flats).*
* As of 2016.
**As of 2011.
*** As of 2012.
Join us in our initiative to preserve this planet for future generations!
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 🌎