Last July, Sobeys announced that it would be removing single-use plastic grocery bags from all Sobeys grocery stores by the end of January 2020, and tomorrow it looks like they are set to do just that! Starting Friday, January 31, 2020, Sobeys Inc. will remove all plastic grocery bags from its 255 Sobeys stores across Canada.

As the first national Canadian grocery retailer to ban single-use plastic bags, a recent news release states that this will translate into taking 225 million single-use plastic grocery bags out of circulation each year.

“Knowing that plastic use is not something we can recycle our way out of, it will take a combination of reducing, reusing and recycling to make an impactful and sustainable change.”, stated the retailer. “Eliminating single-use plastic grocery bags, and promoting reusable options, is an important step in Sobeys’ sustainability journey.”

Here’s some of the data that helped them arrive at their decision: