Recycling

In Store Recycling

RecyclingEarth Day Recycling Challenge

For Earth Day 2012, our employees competed to recycle the most materials per store size as part of an expanded in-store recycling program, with our partner Cascades Recovery Inc.

From March 1 to April 13, 2012, each store and every department participated by recycling an expanded list of containers into designated tote bags. Once filled, the bags were deposited into a compacter at the store and then picked up for sorting at the Cascades Recovery recycling depot.

The Cascades program empowers each of our over 4,500 employees to be a big part of the solution and the result, diverting over 29 metric tonnes of plastic and paper in just six weeks, roughly the volume of 22 full-sized school buses with seats removed, is a remarkable step in the right direction.

The recycling program is just one of many earth-friendly initiatives underway at Thrifty Foods. For more information, check out our Green Buildings, Reusable Bag Program, Seafood Sustainability and our Transportation and Logistics initiatives.


The Cascades Recovery recycling program includes pickup of the following materials from our stores:

 

Cardboard
  • Clean, flattened cardboard (deposited in cardboard compactor as previously)

Plastic
  • Clean, plastic wrap/film
  • Bubble and shrink wrap
  • Clear or coloured plastic bags
  • Clear or coloured shopping bags
 Paper
  • Colour & White Envelopes
  • Colour & White Paper
  • Copier & Fax Paper
  • File Folders
  • Shredded Paper
  • Newspapers
  • Magazines
  • Kraft Paper i.e. Paper bags
  • Carbonless Paper
  • Boxboard (Tissue & Supply Boxes)
  • Paper Packaging
 Rigid Containers
  • Metal Food and Beverage Cans
  • Glass bottles and Jars
  • Clear blue, clear gray or clear white plastics i.e. soda/water bottles, medicine containers, ketchup bottles, etc
  • Laundry soap containers, bleach and milk jugs, shampoo bottles, cleaning product bottles
  • Some clear beverage bottles, vacuum formed food containers
  • Yogurt or cottage cheese containers
  • Potting plants, styrene plates

We also recycle electronics (cash registers, computers, and telephones) and compost certain food waste.

Recycling Plastic Bags

Thrifty Foods continues to accept and manage the pickup of plastic bags in our stores. Since 2009, 379.46 metric tonnes of plastic (and counting) has been picked up from our stores. This is equivalent to almost 60 million bags being removed from our landfills.

Thrifty Foods continues to meet and work with regional and provincial governments to raise awareness about single-use and reusable bag options.

Empty plastic, tin pop and juice containers

Thrifty Foods collects and recycles your empty plastic and tin drink containers through our partnership with Encorp Inc.

Since 2009, we have saved over 22.4 million used beverage containers made of Plastic, Aluminum, Glass and Drink boxes from entering the landfill.

This includes:

  • 7.5 Million aluminum pop cans
  • 4.6 Million plastic bottles (Sizes up to 1 L)
  • 2.0 Million plastics bottles (Sizes of over 1 L)
  • 1.1 Million glass bottles (Sizes up to 1 L)
  • 0.9 Million orange juice and drink boxes (Sizes up to 1 L)
  • 0.5 Million gable top containers (Sizes up to 1L)