Supermarket Environmental Success

It's easy to get caught up thinking no one cares about the environment, so I thought I'd share a success story to help boost your spirit and encourage YOU to keep doing your best to help our Earth!

Countdown is a multi-chain supermarket with many stores throughout New Zealand and was the first to ban plastic bags! They've said "we're really committed to, and actively working towards, removing and reducing unnecessary plastic and packaging across our business."

So far they have removed:

• Plastic Bags - this will remove 350 million bags from circulation each year! They offer a reusable bag for just $1 that can be returned to the store when it wears out and replaced for no charge.

• All packs of single-use plastic straws from shelves and began offering a range of more sustainable and reusable alternatives including bamboo, metal and paper straws.

• All plastic packaging from bananas, meaning 15.8 tonnes of plastic will no longer be entering the waste stream.

• Overall, 70 tonnes of unnecessary plastic packaging from our produce section.

Since October last year they have been using recycled plastic sourced from the NZ waste stream for our packaged in-store bakery goods. This means 177 tonnes less of virgin plastic coming into New Zealand each year.

Countdowns current commitments for 2020 for a healthy Aotearoa New Zealand are to:

1. Move to a circular economy.

• Towards zero food waste going to landfill.

• Improve the recyclability of our own brand packaging and contribute to the circular economy.

2. Source environmentally sustainable commodities

• Source key raw materials and commodities sustainably to an independent standard by 2020. We will raise awareness of sustainably sourced products.

• Achieve net zero supply chain deforestation for 'high impact' commodities in our own brand products, such as palm oil, timber, pulp and paper, and packaging.

3. Responding to climate change.

• Reduce Countdown's carbon emissions to 10 per cent below 2015 levels.

• Innovate with natural refrigerants and reduce refrigerant leakage in our stores by 15 per cent of CO2 equivalent below 2015 levels.

Furthermore, they say they are "absolutely committed to using 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging in our own brands by 2025 or earlier." This is an amazing goal and we hope that they can achieve it and become a more eco-friendly supermarket!