Wal-Mart’s New Plastic Bag Policy

Personal experiences with Wal-Mart and friend who have worked there lead me to believe that they aren’t, by far, an amazing company. In fact, they might be seen as part of the problem – it is usually a greener option to buy locally produced products, even if Wal-Mart does sell it at a lower price. Furthermore, their hiring policies are shady at best.

That said, Wal-Mart is taking steps in the right direction. Earlier this year, they announced that they were committing to only buying legal, greener wood products, and this past week, they also announced a plan to cut back on plastic bag usage. Wal-Mart hopes to reduce plastic bag waste by 1/3 by 2013.

That means they’re going to cut out 9 billion plastic bags each year – and that’s more than 135 million pounds of plastic waste. They’ll be cutting down on bags by 25% in the United States and 50% in other countries, according to their press release. They’ll also be selling reusable bags for just 50 cents, making that option highly affordable for all shoppers.

So Wal-Mart isn’t all bad. I guess.