The days of getting plastic bags when checking out at Wegmans are numbered.
Plastic bags will be eliminated on Sept. 22 from all 18 of the supermarket chain’s Pennsylvania stores, including the State College-area location at 345 Colonnade Boulevard, the company announced on Thursday.
The Rochester, New York-based grocer first said in April that the bags would be removed from Pennsylvania stores by the end of 2022. Doing so will complete the company’s plan to eliminate single-use plastic bags from all of its 107 stores in seven states.
“Completing our transition out of single-use plastic bags across the company is a big celebration as we continue to expand our sustainability efforts and focus on doing what’s right for the environment,” Jason Wadsworth, Wegmans category merchant for packaging, energy and sustainability, said in a news release. “We started on this journey in 2019 when we set out to eliminate plastic bags in our New York State stores ahead of the state plastic bag ban. A lot has happened over the last three years, but that early success in New York showed us the impact we could make and drove us to continue on our journey to be plastic bag free by the end of 2022.”
Paper bags will continue to be available for 5 cents each, but the goal is to encourage customers to shift to reusable bags, which the company called “the best option to solve the environmental challenge of single-use grocery bags.”
Money collected from paper bag charges will be donated to each store’s local United Way.
In Wegmans stores where plastic bags have already been eliminated, paper bags are used for 20-25%, while the remainder are reusable bags or no bag at all, according to the release.
The company also plans to reduce in-store plastic packaging and other single-use plastics by 10 million pounds by 2024.
