Companies must put people and the planet over plastic. Will Albertsons join the fight?

You’ve likely seen the pictures: Birds whose stomachs are filled with plastic bags. A turtle with a plastic straw deep in its nose. A dolphin’s snout tangled in six-pack rings.

Plastic pollution is a crisis for our planet. Only nine percent of all the plastic ever produced has been recycled. And the rate of recycling has cratered in many American cities since China virtually banned imports of plastic waste in 2018.

It’s not just marine life that will feel the heat: Plastic could contribute as much climate pollution over the next decade as 300 coal power plants. The oil and gas industry – which sees plastic as a gold mine – is building 300+ new facilities just to make more of it. Materials, not energy, could account for over half of growth in oil demand in the coming decades. This would be catastrophic for our oceans and climate. If we keep this up, plastic waste in the ocean will outweigh fish by 2050.

Solving this problem will require both individual and community action, but the plastic industry is not only lobbying to defeat waste-reduction measures but also attacking our ability to pass legislation that would limit pollution. There are now policies in at least 17 states that prevent cities and towns from locally regulating plastic. We’re not going to solve this issue unless companies that use and sell plastic become part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Fortunately, some of the largest corporations are stepping up. In the last few months, General Motors, SC Johnson, Pepsi and Coca-Cola withdrew their memberships from the Plastics Industry Association, following Clorox, Ecolab and other companies. Last year, American Airlines committed to phase out plastic straws and drink stirrers. Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, committed to eliminating plastic bags and other single-use plastics from its stores.

That’s why the Sierra Club – in collaboration with Greenpeace, Daily Kos, and the Plastic Pollution Coalition – is calling for Albertsons, the nation’s second-largest supermarket chain, to step up and get rid of single-use plastic bags too. Based on sales across its major supermarket brands, including Safeway, Shaws, Vons and ACME, Albertsons could reduce plastic pollution by an estimated 3 billion bags per year.

Unfortunately, the plastic industry, and Albertsons, continue to dodge responsibility by spreading the myth that recycling alone will solve our plastic pollution predicament. That’s more dream than reality. Because creating plastic from fossil fuels is cheaper than recycling it into new products, the US currently burns six times as much plastic as it recycles.

We must move away from single-use plastic products, which are often used for no more than a few minutes, but last much longer than a human lifetime. I imagine a future where our grandchildren won’t be able to comprehend why stores distributed millions of flimsy, single-use plastic containers. Bags that consumers immediately threw away, leaving them destined to spoil our oceans, rivers, and streams. Companies like Albertsons have a moral obligation to cut down on the amount of plastic they distribute. We need Albertsons to take a stand for what is right. We need them to act. Now. They can do so, today, by immediately committing to phase out plastic bags.