I recently received two responses from Publix Super Markets to my requests for them to stop putting all of their branded meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, produce deli and bakery items in single use polystyrene or PET clamshell single use packaging. It is even more frustrating that they then offer to put customers’ purchases in plastic bags.
The first reply to my initial letter to the CEO (todd.jones@publix.com) came from “Customer Services.” Publix’s second email was kicked back upstairs and came from an “Executive Offices Specialist” which arrived after I sent my second email replying directly to “Customer Services.” It started like this:
“Thank you for taking the time to contact our executive office. At Publix, we know our success depends on sustaining our environment. Our corporate purchasing department continues to look for alternatives to expanded polystyrene trays and single use plastic. When making packaging decisions, we consider product quality, food safety, and environmental performance. We also work closely with suppliers to identify sustainable packaging and shipping options.
Publix also has an extensive recycling program. Our Recycling Team recycles cardboard, wax and floral buckets, plastic and paper bags, plastic film, and Styrofoam. Many of these items are returned to the store by our customers and placed in our recycle bins at each Publix location.
Here’s a look at some of our recycled materials in 2021 companywide:
• 307,826 tons of cardboard
• 12,526 tons of mixed plastic
• 6,516 tons of mixed paper…
While we’ve made great progress, we know there’s always room for improvement. By constantly seeking new information and innovations, and collaborating with partners, we will continue to be a leader in sustainability.”
So, Publix redirects attention from the issue of their responsibility for proliferation of single use plastic. They could contribute to solving the problem simply with a corporate policy banning use of single use plastic packaging in all of their own branded fresh food. That they are doing their best to research their options as they urge their customers to bring their plastic bags, paper bags or polystyrene (styrofoam) trays to place in one of the three recycle bins at each store is completely insufficient. Of course, “there’s always room for improvement,” especially when all they are doing is “constantly seeking new information and innovations, and collaborating with partners” instead of stepping up and dealing with the crisis.
To achieve a goal one must make decisions and follow through by actually acting on difficult choices. To stop the proliferation of single use plastics, Publix must stop packaging almost every food product they brand in single use plastic containers. How is it possible that entire countries, states & cities have banned and stopped use of single use plastic and plastic bags? To spew rhetoric and quote tonnage to show how great they are doing and being conscientious by recycling their cardboard packaging and putting three recycling containers in front of every store for customer convenience is disingenuous… Especially so when over 90% of the single use plastic ends up in landfills or our seas. It is nauseating to go 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico and find polystyrene Publix eggs crates and meat and vegetable styrofoam trays floating around. Publix must stop using single use plastic packaging instead of talking about attempting to make improvements in recycling them (in programs that on the whole are completely ineffective). Possibly then we would see a positive impact on the environment.
To know that sea turtles are choking to death on plastic bags unnecessarily when Publix could resolve the problem entirely with implementation of one store policy is not a justifiable position to take.
Please share this with your friends, coworkers and the managers and CEO of your super market. It is time that corporations realize that they can lead the way toward a more sustainable future rather than bragging of how little they have done as their corporate purchasing department “continues to look for alternatives to expanded polystyrene trays and single use plastic.”
The time to act is now.
Only after you have banned single use plastics will you “continue to be a leader in sustainability.” JUST DO IT!
© stevendphilbrick 03.17.2022 sr+ sukidawg
SR+ An IngeniousVortex 