Members

Alosra supermarket continues plastic reduction journey with its second plastic bag free week to launch on December 26, 2018

Alosra supermarket launched its first plastic bag free week across its Bahrain-based stores on November 18, 2018. The week saw the supermarket save 95,000 plastic bags from being used through offering customers with alternative options.

Alosra supermarket alone uses 5 million plastic bags a year, and with the launch of this initiative, it takes its first step towards a series of changes that will help reduce this figure. “We need to start somewhere - it’s about taking small steps until we reach our ultimate goal,” said Yasmine Mohamed, Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing at BMMI. “We want to help transform Bahrain's plastic infrastructure by working towards reducing our environmental impact. Our vision is in line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals; half of which are directly environmental in focus or address the sustainability of natural resources. That’s why Alosra is currently on a plastic reduction mission, working on finding suitable and sustainable packaging solutions for our products,” she said.

Jaffar Al Asfoor, General Manager of Food Retailing and Production, stated that one of supermarket’s main goals will be to remove all plastic carrier bags. “Our plastic bag free week will continue to take place every month to help raise awareness and empower customers to change their habits,” he said. “Even though it was only one week, we were able to divert 95,000 plastic bags from ending up in the landfill and into our seas. We hope that our customers will be encouraged to purchase and use our ECO bags which have an average lifespan equal to more than 700 plastic bags,” added Jaffar.

For the BMMI Group, the plan is to start small and work towards long-term solutions. “This is going to be a very exciting and challenging journey for us over the next five years; but it will definitely be a collective effort, and we hope that our customers, partners and community will all join in with us on it,” said BMMI CEO Marek Sheridan. “The plan is to do our best to sustainably replace and eliminate all non-recyclable plastics and excess packaging within our control by 2025,” he added.

BMMI was recognised by the Supreme Council for the Environment for launching this campaign and Alosra is committed to sustain this initiative, with the next plastic bag free week set to take place from December 26, 2018 to January 2, 2019.