Kroger's plastic bag recycling program is proving successful

It seems that so many companies these days are green. Or at least they say they are. They want to be seen as an environmentally friendly business because you, the consumer, have demonstrated a real concern for all things green. This has resulted in a multibillion-dollar market for green products. And in the pursuit of that money, there's a lot of green advertising. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the veracity of some of these green marketing claims.

But within the green mist, there is some substance. Example: Kroger's Bag 2 Bag recycling program. Since it started the program in November, Kroger store customers in Texas and Louisiana have recycled 113 tons of plastic shopping bags, plastic dry cleaner wraps and other items -- equivalent to eight truckloads of plastics that will not end up in a landfill, or blown into a tree or waterway. Included in that 113 tons, the company says, is 5.5 million plastic shopping bags. The program works like this: when you load up your shopping cart with plastic bags full of groceries, bring the bags back to the store and they recycle them. Kroger's stores also accept plastic bags from competing stores. You can also bring the plastic wraps from your dry cleaner, and the plastic wraps around your water bottles.

Anyway, it's a modest program that's had a lot of impact with not a lot of publicity.

-- Scott Streater

Comments

[Cristian]

I am so thankful for Kroger's willingness to do this! I recycle almost everything I use, even the paper wrappings on straws! Because of Kroger's program, I shop there more frequently.