AUSTIN, Texas. (January 22, 2008). The grocery store chain Whole Foods Market announced that it is halting its use of plastic grocery bags at all of its 270 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company said the goal is to have all the bags removed from the stores by April 22, 2008.

A.C. Gallo, co-president and COO for Whole Foods Market, said, “More and more cities and countries are beginning to place serious restrictions on single-use plastic shopping bags since they don’t break down in our landfills, can harm nature by clogging waterways and endangering wildlife, and litter our roadsides. Together with our shoppers, our gift to the planet this Earth Day will be reducing our environmental impact as we estimate we will keep 100 million new plastic grocery bags out of our environment between Earth Day and the end of this year alone.”

Whole Foods says it is the first U.S. supermarket to commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags.

More information can be found at online at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/byobag.