Walmart, Target and CVS have announced they are teaming up as big players in the retail industry to come up with a plan to reinvent single-use plastic bags
The 'Beyond the Bag' Initiative will be a joint effort to find a replacement to the more than 100 million plastic bags that are used in the United States each year
With $15 million invested, they are looking to entrepreneurs and inventors to pitch new ideas that will eventually enter a product accelerator knowing these retailers are eager for a solution
All three retailers have experimented with alternatives, but nothing has stuck. A plastic bag tax has deterred shoppers, but there is still no clear solution on how to walk away from them all together
“We have to approach this as an industry,” says Kathleen McLaughlin, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer at Walmart