Leading Retailers Accelerate Industry Collaboration to Eliminate Single-Use Bag Waste

October 23, 2024, New York, NY — Today, the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, an industry collaboration managed by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, announced a renewed collaboration with many of the world’s leading retailers, expanding its groundbreaking work to eliminate single-use bag waste.

Retailers Target, CVS Health, The Kroger Co., Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Meijer and Walmart are renewing their long-standing commitment in the Consortium, focusing on implementing more sustainable and convenient solutions to eliminate single-use retail bag waste. Building on four years of collaborative work and extensive in-market tests and research, this strengthened commitment will allow the Consortium to continue scaling proven bag waste reduction strategies.

Highlighting the successes of the last four years and charting a path forward for potential impact, the Consortium is also releasing a new report, Sparking a National Culture Shift to Reduce Plastic Bag Waste. The report shares findings from the Consortium’s largest in-market reusable bag tests in 2023, which spanned 160 retailers and 375+ stores of all sizes across Denver, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona. Through the tests, retail stores encouraged consumers to develop the habit of bringing their bag or opting to go without one, resulting in nearly 5% fewer single-use plastic bag transactions. This equated to the potential elimination of up to 9.5 million bags annually across the two test geographies, demonstrating the impact of supporting customers at different stages of their journey to reuse a bag or go without one.

Read the full report

The findings from the Consortium’s 2023 in-market tests serve as a blueprint for the Consortium’s upcoming work to scale bag waste reduction strategies. By acting together to advance solutions that support customers and avoid waste, the Consortium aims to achieve positive environmental impact and minimize unintended consequences.

“100 billion single-use plastic bags are used in the U.S. every year. From the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag’s work over the last four years, we know that retailer collaboration and customer engagement are critical to making single-use bag waste a thing of the past. The Consortium is proud to bring retail industry leaders together in a renewed commitment to making circular strategies a reality on the ground. As we expand from ideation to implementation of solutions that support customers and reduce single-use bag waste, we aim to drive a cultural change toward reduction and reuse,” says Kate Daly, Managing Director and Head of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners.

The Consortium’s continued collaboration signals the collective commitment of many retail industry leaders to implement tested solutions that move the needle toward zero waste goals and the importance of working together to achieve these. As policy around bags gains momentum in the U.S. and new solutions are needed to address the single-use bag waste crisis, the Consortium will share legislative best practices gathered from its holistic assessment and continue identifying, testing and implementing new innovative solutions.

“We are proud of the shared progress achieved with the Consortium and across the retail industry over the past four years, meeting shoppers where they are with accessible, adoptable alternatives to single-use plastic bags,” said Agata Ramallo Garcia, vice president, head of enterprise sustainability at Target. “The partnerships we continue to forge through the Consortium demonstrate the power and need for collaboration in order to innovate and scale solutions that will meaningfully reduce single-use plastic bag waste.”

“Reducing single-use bag impacts is a positive step for both the environment and our health,” said Jenny McColloch, vice president of sustainability and community impact at CVS Health. “We are excited to move forward with the next phase of work with the Consortium and come together to drive innovation across our sectors, especially as packaging policies continue to evolve and consumer experiences vary from retailer to retailer.”

“We believe that learning and working collaboratively is the best way to reduce the number of single-use plastic bags in the U.S.,” said Lisa Zwack, Head of Sustainability at The Kroger Co. “By assembling a number of major retailers in the initial phase of this work, the Consortium laid a foundation for innovation and systems change. We look forward to extending this collective effort to create more circular, waste-free systems that support our customers and our stores.”

With deepened collaboration and reach across the retail industry, the Consortium is poised to scale bag waste reduction and reuse strategies that enable behavior change and support a broader cultural shift to eliminate single-use bag waste.

Retailers of all sizes are invited to join the Consortium’s multi-year collaboration to engage their customers and communities, advance their sustainability goals and co-create a waste-free retail future.

Interested in learning more about the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag? Learn more here.

Interested in reading the Consortium’s latest report? Visit here.

About the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners

The Center for the Circular Economy is the innovation arm of Closed Loop Partners, a firm at the forefront of building the circular economy. The Center executes research and analytics, unites organizations to tackle complex material challenges and implements systemic change that advances the circular economy. The Center for the Circular Economy’s expertise spans circularity across the full lifecycle of materials, connecting upstream innovation to downstream recovery infrastructure and end markets. Learn more about the Center for the Circular Economy at closedlooppartners.com/the-center/

About the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag

The Beyond the Bag Initiative, launched by the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, aims to identify, pilot and implement viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current retail bag. Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy manages the Consortium, with Target, CVS Health and The Kroger Co. as Strategic Leads, and Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Meijer and Walmart as Supporting Partners. Learn more about the Consortium here.