BY THE NUMBERS - BIG Y'S GREEN INITIATIVE

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.

Salad Bar Goes Green

• New salad bar containers are made of recycled PET Beverage Bottles. This offers a sustainable packaging solution that is better for the enviorment.
• The bottom of the container shows how many 16.9 oz PET Beverage Bottles were recycled in order to make the container.
• Look for the lime green containers on the salad bar at your local Big Y.

SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS

Big Y Foods, Inc. has eliminated single-use plastic grocery bags at all of our Big Y, Fresh Acres, Table & Vine and Big Y Express locations. By removing single-use plastic bags at checkout, and encouraging shoppers to use reusable bags for their groceries, Big Y and our customers can work together to make a difference, eliminating the 100 million plastic bags that were previously distributed each year! Thank you for partnering with us to save the planet one bag at a time!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 Stations

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

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.