Thrifty Foods President Jim Dores has announced the launch of a new and expanded recycling program in stores on Vancouver Island, Saltspring Island and the Lower Mainland in co-ordination with recycling partner Cascades Recovery.

鈥淒iverting garbage from landfill sites is a top priority for Thrifty Foods and today鈥檚 achievement is a big step toward our goal of reducing our Greenhouse Gas Emission intensity by 15 per cent by 2013,鈥� Dores said. More than 4,500 employees have diverted upwards of 29 metric tonnes of plastic and paper in six weeks,  roughly the volume of 22 school buses with seats removed.

On March 1, the in-store recycling program was expanded to recycle metal and glass food containers, plastic yogurt and cottage cheese containers, laundry and milk jugs, medicine bottles, gardening pots and a variety of paper packaging formerly disposed of as garbage. Even the backing rolls used for the Thrifty Foods 鈥楽mile鈥� stickers make their way into the new recycling bags, which then head straight to Cascades Recovery Plus recycling facilities in Victoria and Vancouver.

鈥淔or almost two decades, Cascades Recovery has been working closely with Thrifty Foods to recover discarded materials from their stores and, in turn, have those materials recycled into new products,鈥� Cascades president Al Metauro said.

The company has been recovering cardboard from Thrifty Foods stores since 1991. Thrifty Foods鈥� expanded list of recyclables is also processed into materials for other Cascades products, including shipping containers for toilet paper and paper towel products.

The Cascades Recovery program is one of many Green Aisle activities taking place at Thrifty Foods. For more information, check the Green Buildings, Reusable Bag Program, Bottle and Cardboard Recycling, Seafood Sustainability, and Transportation and Logistics initiatives at www.thriftyfoods.com.