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Giant Eagle has started discontinuing plastic bags at its supermarket stores, including those in the Pittsburgh area. (Photo by Katherine Mansfield)

Giant Eagle has started discontinuing plastic bags at its supermarket stores, including those in the Pittsburgh area. (Photo by Katherine Mansfield)

Giant Eagle plans to eliminate the use of single-use plastic grocery bags in its Pittsburgh area stores in upcoming months.

Starting Oct. 20, Giant Eagle supermarkets throughout Central Ohio will discontinue the use of plastic bags, and the O’Hara-based grocery chain is encouraging guests to use environmentally friendly reusable bags.

Currently the supermarket chain has eliminated the plastic bags in its Erie and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, stores.

Pittsburgh stores won’t be far behind, according to Cara Mercil, Giant Eagle Director of Sustainability.

By eliminating the familiar blue bags from its stores, Giant Eagle estimates it will divert more than six million pounds of plastic from entering the waste stream each year.

Giant Eagle also recently completed the removal of single-use plastic bags from its more than 250 GetGo locations, which the company said will prevent 27 million plastic bags from landfills over the course of a year.

“At Giant Eagle, we are committed to supporting the communities we serve, and we recognize the responsibility we have to help provide our families with a clean environment to play, swim and enjoy for generations to come,” said Mercil.

The transition from plastic bags to reusable bags is part of Giant Eagle’s environmentally-driven decision to reduce waste and carbon emissions, and promote sustainable products.

Each year, Americans use five trillion single-use plastic bags, more than 90% of which are never recycled and end up in a landfill or litter the environment.

The company’s efforts began in 2019, when it removed single-use plastic bags from its Bexley Market District in Ohio, preventing more than two million plastic bags from entering landfills – where it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to fully break down.

In 2020, Giant Eagle paused its program to eliminate plastic bags from Market District stores because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To encourage the use of reusable bags, Giant Eagle will charge five cents per paper bag. Paper bags are biodegradable and recyclable but use high amounts of water and energy to produce.

Shoppers who pay for their groceries with forms of government-funded food purchase assistance such as SNAP or WIC will be exempt from the paper bag fee.

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