Tags: Community, Green, Environment, Compost, Recycle, Charge, Solar

BY THE NUMBERS - BIG Y'S GREEN INITIATIVE

At Big Y, beyond providing great quality, great prices and great customer service, we also try to be smart about the resources we use, how much energy we consume and how we handle whatever waste we create. While we've always been mindful, over the past few years we've made a massive company-wide effort to be as earth-friendly as we can. Over the past three years we've reduced our total consumption by more than 5,000,000 kWh!"

COMING TO ALL STORES IN 2020

  • New plastic cups and lids in our Food Service departments that eliminates the need for straws.
  • The cup and lid are made of 100% #1 PETE, the most widely recycled plastic in America.
  • This change will reduce Big Y's volume of landfill bound trash while helping our environment.

WE DRY SMARTER

Thank you for utilizing our Energy Efficient Hand Dryers instead of paper towels. By eliminating 1 ton of paper towels: 

  • 17 Fully Grown Trees are Saved
  • 3 Cubic Yards of Landfill Space is Reduced
  • 20 Thousand Gallons of Water Remain Unpolluted

ECO-FRIENDLY CHICKEN BAGS

  • Your Rotisserie Chicken is now packaged in an eco-responsible bag that is both convenient and better for the environment.
  • It uses 66% less plastic, which means less trash in our landfills.
  • It's slim lightweight design is more compact to ship, which means less fuel and less greenhouse gas emissions.

Cartoon Recycling Truck

WE RECYCLE

If it can be recycled, we recycle it
meaning it doesn't end up in landfills.
How much?

  • 432 tons of plastic bags and wrappings
  • 15,483 tons of cardboard and paper
  • 1 billion customer bottles and cans thru Tomra
  • Bottle/can collection in Cafe and break rooms
  • Rigid plastic recycling
  • Single stream recycling
  • American Flags

Recycling Trash Cans

WE COMPOST

All of our stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut divert food from landfills.

  • Salvageable food donated to Food Banks and local soup kitchens
  • 2,500 tons of food waste is composted annually or used as animal feed

Solar Panels & the Sun

WE SHINE

We’ve installed solar photovoltaic systems at the Big Y Support Center,  and our stores in Stafford Springs, CT and Franklin, Lee, and Southwick, MA. We now have more than 4.0 MW of solar energy offsetting our electrical consumption. To date, those solar arrays have generated over  13,850,000 kWh of clean energy.

Car & Charging Station

WE CHARGE

Our Northampton, Westfield, Lee, Franklin, Cheshire, Old Saybrook, Greenfield, Walpole, Westfield Shops, Shelton, Store Support Center, Marlborough locations offer free charging stations for our customers who drive electric vehicles.

Air Conditioner

WE COOL SMARTER

All of our coolers and freezers have been made more energy efficient. How?

  • Most are lit by energy-efficient LEDs
  • All of our stores now use Electronically

Commutated Motors in their coolers and freezers, which use 50% less energy than traditional motors

Cartoons of Store Front

WE'RE EFFICIENT

Across all of our stores, we employ many different energy-saving measures. How efficient are we? Each new store saves more than: 800,000 kWh every year.

That is the equivalent of:

• 1,310 barrels of oil consumed
• the annual electrical usage of 98 homes
• 120 cars taken off the road for one year

Several ways this is accomplished is:

• LED lighting
• Doors on dairy cases
• Night curtains on open cases
• Hybrid condensers
• High efficiency refrigeration systems
• High efficiency roof top units (RTUs) for air conditioning stores
• Building management systems to optimize energy usage

Car Charging Station

Car Charging Stations

We provide ChargePoint EV Stations for our customers to charge their electric cars while they shop.

Reusable Bags

Tips for Cleaning Your Reusable Bags

To prevent cross-contamination and reduce risk for foodborne illness, here are tips to ensure your bags stay germ free.