Lowe's Canada Committed to Reducing Waste

 

Committed to reducing the environmental footprint of its operations, including the amount of waste sent to landfills, Lowe’s Canada announces the deployment of tangible measures to encourage its customers to use less plastic bags. Starting June 1st in Quebec and September 1st in other Canadian provinces, standard plastic bags will be charged 5¢ and thicker plastic bags of 50 microns and more will be charged 10¢ in all Lowe’s, RONA and Reno-Depot corporate stores. Profits from this initiative will be donated to Nature Conservancy Canada to fund conservancy projects throughout the country.

“Reducing the environmental footprint of our products and operations is at the heart of Lowe’s Canada’s corporate responsibility strategy. Yet, each year, Canadian consumers who visit our stores across the country leave with millions of plastic bags. By charging these bags, we hope to provide a deterrent and incite our customers to change their shopping habits,” explains Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux, senior vice-president, Communications, public affairs and compliance for Lowe’s Canada. “Bringing reusable shopping bags when going grocery shopping has become a habit for a lot of people now and we want to encourage them to do the same when visiting our stores. We are convinced that, combined with our in-store awareness initiatives, this measure will help us significantly reduce the number of plastic bags used in our stores.”

Several recovery and recycling measures already implemented
This new measure builds on the several recovery and recycling initiatives already in place within the Lowe’s Canada network of corporate stores. In addition to being the retailer recovering the largest quantity of paint in Canada (in 2017 alone, 3,545 tons of paint were recycled thanks to the program in place), Lowe’s Canada also implemented programs to recover compact fluorescent light bulbs, batteries, wood and building materials such as gypsum and styrofoam.

“Additional initiatives that would allow us to reduce even more the environmental footprint of the company are currently being considered. For example, we want to collaborate more closely with our vendor partners to find solutions to reduce packaging for products sold in our stores”, concludes Ms. Lamoureux.