Pittsburgh-based grocery store chain Giant Eagle announced Tuesday that it will eliminate single-use plastics by 2025.

It is the first retailer of its size in the U.S. to make such a commitment, Greenpeace USA senior communications specialist Perry Wheeler told EcoWatch in an email.

"When my great-grandfather and the four other founders started Giant Eagle nearly 90 years ago, they wanted to improve life for people in their communities," Giant Eagle CEO and President Laura Shapira Karet said in the announcement. "Protecting our planet for future generations is a critical way we uphold this commitment today."

The retailer said it will target plastic bags, straws, bottles and serving containers. It will also stop using plastic to wrap all of its products, such as bread loaves and hot dogs, WESA reported.

The commitment will begin with a six-month pilot program to eliminate plastic bags at stores in Pittsburgh and Ohio's Bexley and Cuyahoga County, the company said. The Pittsburgh pilot program will begin Jan. 15 of 2020 at the Waterworks Market District as a collaboration with Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh and Sustainable Pittsburgh.

The retailer will remove all single-use plastic bags from the register, and instead customers will be able to choose between a reusable bag for 99 cents or a paper bag for a 10-cent fee. Customers using food stamps will be exempt from the paper-bag fee, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

The reusable bags will be available at all of Giant Eagle's 474 stores, and, for a limited time, the retailer will offer customers a perk for every reusable bag they use starting Tuesday, the chain said.

"This is an important step to say there's a better way of moving forward," Joylette Portlock, executive director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "People care about this, just like they care about climate change."

Giant Eagle will address the issue of climate change too. The single-use plastics commitment is the first specific goal the retailer is announcing as part of a larger "strategic sustainability platform," the company said. It also plans to target waste, carbon emissions, sustainable products and "team member engagement."