Whole Foods First National Retailer to Use FSC Certified, 100% Recycled Bags

Whole Foods Market announced just before Earth Day this year that it is the first national retailer to offer Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper bags at its checkout counters beginning in May.

“Whole Foods Market is thrilled to set the bar even higher in terms of reducing our environmental impact with paper bags that close the loop with 100 percent post-consumer reclaimed material,” said Michael Besancon, Whole Foods Market Senior Global Vice President of Purchasing, Distribution, and Marketing. “The chain-of-custody that our paper bags have attained means these bags can be tracked throughout the supply chain - from post-consumer waste through processing and distribution to the shopper toting home groceries, all the while reducing pressure on virgin forests and protecting biodiversity.”

Previously, Whole Foods Market was the first national retailer to offer 100 percent recycled (60 percent post-industrial/40 percent post-consumer) paper bags at its checkouts. FSC certification on paper bags made from 100 percent post-consumer reclaimed material is another first for the natural and organic foods retailer. Post-consumer reclaimed material typically comes from corrugated boxes that might have held food or other products that have been shipped to various retail outlets. This repurposing is important in a country that is the biggest market for paper products globally, producing 90 million tons of paper and consuming 100 million tons of paper each year, according to the FSC.

Whole Foods Market continues to offer shoppers who bring their own bags a refund of either five or 10 cents at the checkouts, depending on the store, and estimates that reusable bag use has tripled since the Company banned plastic bags from its checkouts last year with approximately 150 million bags being kept out of landfills and our environment. Whole Foods Market sells a variety of reusable bags, ranging from the stylish, affordable “A Better Bag” - 79 and 99 cents, depending on size - with 80 percent of its content coming from recycled plastic bottles and currently featuring a Sheryl Crow-created charcoal sketch of a tree to the $29.99 cotton and burlap FEED 100 bag. A FEED bag purchase helps provide 100 nutritious lunches to hungry Rwandan school children through the United Nations World Food Program’s School Feeding Program.

Additionally, Whole Foods Market partnered this month with Mohawk Fine Papers to be the first national retailer to create all of its nationally produced, in-store Earth Month materials using “third-generation” closed-loop recycled paper. This means that the Company is using marketing material overages from the previous year, which were printed on paper made from 100 percent post-consumer waste, sent to a de-inker, made into pulp and sent back to the same paper mill that produced it, to be recycled anew into this year’s Earth Month materials. All aspects of the third-generation closed-loop process have occurred domestically, eliminating the need to ship pulp out of the country and back again, which is currently the norm.

According to Whole Foods, this process has preserved 192 trees and has prevented more than 9,000 pounds of solid waste and close to 20,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from entering our environment.