Trader Joe’s can do more to reduce plastic waste

Every time you unpack the groceries, do you get frustrated by the amount of plastic that wraps your food and other goods?

We can try our best to avoid plastic when we shop, but it would be better — for us and the environment — if grocery stores like Trader Joe’s stopped wrapping their products in so much single-use plastic in the first place.

Trader Joe’s uses millions of pounds of plastic to wrap its products every year, most of which will end up in a landfill or littering our streets and waterways. We need Trader Joe’s to help prevent waste and reduce plastic packaging so it never goes home with us in the first place.

What happens to all that plastic packaging?

Some of that plastic may be recycled. But not enough. Recent reports estimate that only 5% of plastic actually gets recycled, and the rest sits in landfills or pollutes the environment where it won’t break down for thousands of years.

Your weekly grocery shopping shouldn’t lead to plastic waste that will outlive us all.

We want Trader Joes to help prevent plastic waste

Lots of us love Trader Joe’s, whether it’s for its unique selection of seasonal goods or the smaller store size that makes shopping less overwhelming. But we’d love Trader Joe’s even more if it took bigger steps to reduce its plastic waste.

Trader Joe’s can change its policies. But it needs to hear from customers and other consumers, so the store’s leaders know that we’re paying attention.

Our world is far too dependent on plastic, and it’s having consequences including ocean pollution, microplastic in our water and air, and landfills that are piling up.

That’s why PIRG is working to move our country beyond plastic by convincing corporations to use less plastic in the first place, eliminating the worst single-use plastics, and pushing back against industry misinformation.

We don’t need all this plastic, especially the single-use stuff that only is useful for a few minutes before it becomes garbage. Trader Joe’s can take steps to show that reducing plastic packaging is possible and worth the effort.