Shopping for Plastic: The 2021 Supermarket Plastics Ranking
Publication Date: February 2021 | Greenpeace
We’ve ranked 20 major U.S. grocery retailers based on their efforts to reduce their reliance on plastics and tackle the pollution crisis. Every minute the equivalent of a truckload of plastic enters the oceans. That plastic can kill whales, seabirds, turtles, and fish. But all of this plastic doesn’t have to enter the ocean to do damage. It is overwhelming communities, impacting human health, and fueling the climate crisis.
As with our first ranking in 2019, all of the supermarkets we assessed received failing scores. Following initial progress after our 2019 ranking, U.S. grocery retailers largely deprioritized sustainability, including plastic pollution, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retailers fell prey to plastics industry propaganda and discontinued bans on single-use plastic checkout bags, delayed implementation of reuse initiatives, and struggled to maintain momentum on sustainability initiatives as corporate priorities shifted to keeping shelves stocked and responding to the public health risks of the pandemic. We now know single-use plastics are not inherently safer than reusables, and supermarkets must embrace a reuse revolution.
In stark contrast to the U.S., even during the pandemic, some supermarkets worldwide, like South Korean Lotte Mart and ALDI UK & Ireland, committed to reducing single-use plastics 50% by 2025. Fortunately, several U.S. retailers, including top-ranked Giant Eagle, are beginning to restart reduction initiatives that were paused when the pandemic spread to the U.S.
While retail operations and the world have changed amid a pandemic, we cannot lose sight of the myriad crises facing our society and planet that continue to worsen every day, including plastic pollution and runaway climate change.
We must continue to demand bold action from retailers on single-use plastics.
