Giant Eagle announced plans to get rid of single-use plastics by 2025, aiming to keep flimsy shopping bags and fresh food containers from clogging oceans and rivers and piling up on land.
The O’Hara-based retailer, in partnership with the City of Pittsburgh and Sustainable Pittsburgh, unveiled its plan Tuesday during an event at the Market District in The Waterworks along Freeport Road, near Aspinwall.
“Some days you get to make a real difference in this world,” Giant Eagle CEO Laura Shapira Karet said. “This is one of those days.”
Karet joined Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Sustainable Pittsburgh Executive Director Joylette Portlock to announce a pilot program that will get underway in January at the Waterworks store, along with the nearby GetGo in O’Hara. The program also will launch at two stores in Ohio.
“Everything comes from somewhere and ends up somewhere,” Portlock said. “We can’t actually throw things away. There is no away.”