Success Story - At Work
Sobey’s Rocky Mountain House
Every week, groceries arrive at the Sobey’s in Rocky Mountain House wrapped in metres and metres of plastic shrink wrap. Finally, after years of truckloads filled with plastic going to the local landfill, manager Mike Hofforth decided he had enough.
“It had always bothered me,” he said. “But there never was an option.”
The solution to this problem arose when they examined their cardboard recycling program. Since the 1970s, the store had been collecting its cardboard and sending it to an Edmonton company for recycling, amounting to a staggering 9,000 lbs of cardboard each week.
Hofforth decided to ask that same Edmonton company, Allied Paper, if they would also take bales of plastic.
Receiving positive information, Hofforth took action, setting up bins in the store and making sure employees knew that plastic no longer went in the garbage. Staff quickly took ownership of the new policy.
“If anyone tries to throw plastic in the garbage, they are told pretty quickly that’s not where it belongs.”
The plastic is stored in banana bins and is then compressed into bales that are over 1.5 metres long and deep, and three-quarters of a metre wide.
Bins in the store’s foyer also encourage customers to recycle their plastic bags. In addition, Hofforth recently handed out 15,000 free re-usable bags during an eight-week period to Sobey’s shoppers.
Hofforth hopes other grocery stores will follow his lead.
“I personally don’t know of too many other stores recycling their plastic or card board,” he said. “But I hope that changes.”
