A New England supermarket chain says it’s the first company of its kind to ban single use plastic bags at checkout.
Big Y announced Tuesday that it intends to shift to entirely reusable bags in 2020. It estimated that the 70-location chain uses 100 million plastic bags a year. Claire D’Amour-Daley, Big Y’s Vice President of Corporate Communications, says it’s part of a larger company push toward sustainability. Some kinds of bags will remain in use.
“If you’re buying chicken, we still have a bag for that, a thin plastic bag. Seafood, etcetera," she told WAMC. "Those are sanitation purposes for health and safety, and we will still have those bags until we can find something better.”
The company says it’s in compliance with local bag bans in Massachusetts, citing Adams, Amherst, Great Barrington, Lee, Northampton, and South Hadley.
