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Giant Eagle Soon Hopes To Eliminate Plastic Bags At All Stores

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Giant Eagle soon hopes to expand its new policy of eliminating single-use plastic bags to all its stores.

On Wednesday, the Market District store at the Waterworks shopping plaza became the testing ground for a six-month plastic bag pilot program.

"We're really hoping this is a good first step to making an impact on the environment," Jannah Jablinowski of Giant Eagle said.

The company said plastic bags could disappear from other local Giant Eagle stores within the next couple of months.

The Market District Giant Eagle goes through 75,000-90,000 single-use plastic bags per week.

There are 100 Giant Eagle stores in Western Pennsylvania, so the potential environmental impact is substantial.

"I love it," Jerry Webb of East Liberty said. "I think it's better if people use their own bags, that way when you get home, you won't waste plastic bags a lot."

Giant Eagle wants to expand the plastic ban to other stores sooner rather than later.

But first, they're watching how it goes at the Waterworks store, as well as the Cleveland-area stores that dropped plastic bags on Jan. 1.

"We want to make sure we have all the kinks worked out before we roll this out on a larger scale," Jablinowski said.

Giant Eagle said it wants to be plastic-free within five years.

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