CVS Health, Target and Walmart launch design solutions to combat plastic waste

The pilot programs will advance alternatives to single-use plastic bags.

Plastic bags in dump

Photo courtesy Dreamstime

The Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, managed by Closed Loop Partners, has announced the launch of multiretailer pilots to advance sustainable alternatives to the single-use plastic bag and accelerate their potential to scale. The pilots will help refine solutions from the consortium’s global Beyond the Bag innovation challenge while evaluating multiple factors such as technical feasibility to desirability. The pilots will run for six weeks.

Beyond the Bag Challenge winners ChicoBag, Fill it Forward, Goatote and 99Bridges will begin pilots across nine stores from CVS Health, Target and Walmart in Northern California. The solutions being tested include multiple reusable bag models that can help serve customers’ needs, extend the useful life of retail bags and provide visibility into the lifecycle of a bag.

In addition to the in-store pilots, other winning solutions from the Beyond the Bag Challenge will be piloted and tested in different contexts. Domtar, PlasticFri and Sway––companies developing alternative materials to single-use plastic––will go through material performance and recovery testing to optimize their designs to match the specifications of recycling and composting facilities.

“To permanently eliminate the 100 billion single-use plastic bags currently used every year in the U.S., we are working collaboratively to build retail solutions that better meet customer needs while lessening the impact on the environment,” says Kate Daly, managing director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “By testing new bag innovations in-store, we gain valuable insights that allow us to iterate quickly and expand to more communities.”  

In July 2020, Closed Loop launched the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, a multiyear collaboration across retail sectors with founding partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart committing $15 million collectively to reduce the amount of plastic bags used in their stores.

Closed Loop says this phase of experimentation is essential to the broader consortium’s collaborative work, which includes additional partners DICK’S Sporting Goods, Dollar General, The Kroger Co., The TJX Companies Inc., Ulta Beauty, Ahold Delhaize USA Brands, Albertsons Companies, Hy-Vee, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corp. and Walgreens. The lessons learned from the pilots will help inform further iterations of the solutions and define where more testing and investment may be needed.

“We’re excited to pilot these new sustainable design solutions that can replace the single-use plastic retail bag,” says Eileen Howard Boone, senior vice president of corporate social responsibility and philanthropy and chief sustainability officer at CVS Health. “Over the last several months, we’ve worked collaboratively with leading retailers and cutting-edge innovators, and we’re thrilled to now be able to bring our customers along on this journey to test these solutions.”

“We envision a retail industry where alternatives to the single-use plastic bag are easy and accessible for all communities,” says Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of corporate responsibility at Target and president of the Target Foundation. “We’re proud to work together toward this goal alongside CVS Health and Walmart, as co-creation is key to our new sustainability strategy, Target Forward. We are thrilled to pilot these winning designs, as we know that collaboration and continuous iteration are integral to developing new potential solutions.”

“At Walmart, we believe climate change requires bold collective action,” says Jane Ewing, senior vice president of sustainability at Walmart. Minimizing plastic waste, in particular, depends on collaboration and cooperation across the retail industry. These pilots represent a unique and exciting industrywide commitment towards a more sustainable future, and we are excited to work with the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag and to be a catalyst for meaningful change.”