
Happy Earth Day!
Hope you have been enjoying my Easy Green Tips this month – because going green in your every day life is easy and the best is that many eco friendly decisions you make also save you money.
And when talking about saving money and going green – I wanted to take a look how Walmart is going green. I understand that Walmart isn’t the first choice to blog about on Earth Day for many, but I happen to be pretty impressed by their sustainability program. Last fall I had an honor to visit the Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as one of the Elevenmoms, and learned more about their green programs. Walmart understands it’s gigantic size, and sees that when they make changes – they all together make a huge difference in a national and global level.
Did you know that Walmart..
… has hybrid delivery trucks?
… was the company who required washing detergent manufacturers to produce concentrated washing detergent? And now sells only concentrated liquid laundry detergent?
… collects rain water in some of their stores?
… has several stores that are run by wind or solar power and their goal is to use 100 percent renewable energy?
Just selling concentrated washing detergent is a large commitment & has a hug impact on our environment. In three years, Walmart expects to sell more than 800 million bottles of concentrated detergent. As a result, the anticipated savings are 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic resin and 125 million pounds of cardboard. And the good news is that when Walmart decided to do this – all of the other retailers followed, and concentrated detergent is now found in all stores, and the impact multiplied.

EARTH DAY GIVEAWAY
Win these three products from Walmart:
Bissel Little Green Machine ($74.88) is made of recycled plastic is cleans life’s little messes easily and effectively.
Brita pitcher ($29.98) is one of my favorites, I have used it for years.
Cold water Tide ($9.99) cuts your energy bill by letting you wash your clothes with cold water.
ENTER THE GIVEAWAY – EACH WAY = ONE ENTRY
1. Comment with a green tip for Walmart – how you think they could improve their sustainability program . Leave a way for me to contact you.
2. Subscribe to my feed to keep in the loop. Leave a comment if you did. (Just FYI, now is a Very Good time to get my feed, ton of amazing giveaways coming up and you don’t want to miss them!)
3. Stumble, Kirtsy or Digg this post and leave comment if you did.
4. Blog about this giveaway and leave a link.
5. Tweet it using hashtag #skimbaco and @katjapresnal and a link back
RULES:
Deadline for comments/above: April 29th midnight EST. US only. Thanks to Walmart for this giveaway!
FULL DISCLOSURE: I received a product sample of each product in this giveaway. I have tested the Tide Cold water and love the Brita pitcher, but haven’t tested the Bissel yet.
Walmart should have recycle bins in store/outside for plastic drink bottles and cans.
Definitely do whatever they can to encourage the use of reuseable cloth bags and STOP the use of plastic bags. At the very least, provide bins where people can recycle plastic bags and actually recycle them.
Walmart needs to increase their line of eco friendly products
I blogged about it:
http://www.theshoppingduck.com/contests/current-contests
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Reusable bags are the way to go, but there are a lot of consumers that won’t use them. Start a month long program with way s to earn free bags and incentives for using them (maybe for every bag they use they get an entry into a big contest). After the month is over, continue to offer some kind of incentive for using reusable bags.
I think one of the biggest things Wal-Mart could do to be “more green” is to use their purchase power to support truly eco friendly companies and products. Considering they are probably sourcing the bulk of what they sell from China it would be great to see them support more US companies and truly green companies that can back up their products with certifications and testing results.
Wal-Mart could use their influence, just like they did with the concentrated laundry products, to help some of the food packaging get smaller. For example, mac & cheeze could be packaged in a box half the size it is.
Also, they could encourage bringing your own bags. Hand out reminder stickers for the frig like Publix does. Give away reusable bags or make them dirt cheap or have an incentive that gives them away such as buying 3 products from an “earth friendly” list, get a free bag.
Thanks for having the giveaway!
walmart should stop making it so difficult for bringing your own bags. they need to make it a process that is more streamlined so its more efficient- and less waste of bags. i had a lady put the 2 shirts i got into 2 separate plastic bags!!
Blogged
http://vickieb52.blogspot.com/2009/04/bloggy-giveaways_24.html
they should make it more convenient for customers to use reusable bags at checkout.
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Walmart should offer an incentive for using reusable bags. They can be pricey when you need lots of them and knowing that I will get some sort of credit back for reusing them would help me feel like I can afford the investment (anything helps in this economy)
I subscribed! Thanks
Walmart should offer a discount of 5 cents per reuseable bag when customers bring them in.
Walmart should offer the plastic bins they are implementing in Canada. It’s a plastic box that fits into the shopping cart and holds about 4 large bags worth of groceries. They are about $4 each and easy to carry from car to house. No more rolling sodas on the drive home!
Walmart…Please start charging tax on each plastic bag that you hand out…This will make people stop and think twice about grabbing their reusable bags!!!
"Skimba" is a Finnish slang word for skiing, and CO is for Colorado. "Skimbaco" is a lifestyle of enjoying every minute of life, where ever you are, and doing what you love - whether it's skiing in Colorado, shopping in New York, or sailing in Scandinavia. Think of Skimbaco as modern carpe diem.
Skimbaco® was founded by lifestyle expert Katja Presnal in 2006.

Here’s a tip – at the end of the planting season, stop throwing away the dead and dying plants/flowers …. you could easily give them away to customers on the weekends, etc. It would be a nice incentive.
AND I am very irritated by the fact that our local Walmarts will not accept computer printed coupons when so many manufactures make these available!!!