Walmart Pledges Packaging Reduction

Walmart Associate Stocking TideHere’s one case where less actually is more. In May, Walmart achieved its goal to sell only concentrated liquid laundry detergent in all our U.S. and Canadian stores, saving precious natural resources, giving customers a more sustainable way to do laundry and more important, transforming the retail industry’s entire liquid laundry detergent category.

In three years, Walmart expects to sell more than 800 million bottles of concentrated detergent. As a result, we anticipate saving 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic resin and 125 million pounds of cardboard. To put the water savings alone into perspective, we are saving the equivalent of 100 million showers, or one car wash for every car in California! Yes, that’s a lot. But our stores sell about a quarter of all the liquid laundry detergent in the U.S, so the potential savings in natural resources could be four times greater if the entire retail industry makes a similar transition.

“This commitment moves us closer to our goal to drive waste out of our supply chain while continuing to offer our customers affordable, environmentally friendly products,” said Matt Kistler, Walmart’s senior vice president of sustainability. “The innovative thinking and strategic collaboration with our suppliers was key to making this project and commitment a success for our customers, our suppliers and our business.”

Walmart hosts fourth annual Sustainable Packaging Expo

In April 2009, we hosted our fourth annual Sustainable Packaging Expo in Rogers, Ark. and invited all of the consumer packaged goods companies that supply our stores.

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Home Entertainment Design Challenge

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