Whole Foods' Becca Burda says plastic clamshells are an attractive way to display food for purchase, but having no easy way to recycle them didn't fit with the Market's green mission. She says the solution is a quarterly event at Whole Foods where everyone can bring their clean clamshells for recycling. "What we do, is we get enough to put in giant bales, and then we will send them back to Portland with our distributor. We have distribution trucks that come over five days a week, and then they go back over the mountain empty. And so, we've found this great way to send bales of clamshells back to Portland, and then they're recycled properly."

  

The Environmental Center is working to educate customers about how #1 plastic clamshells contaminate landfills, and encourage ways to utilize reusable containers.

 

Burda hopes the quarterly events will be popular. "People can bring in two clamshells, they can bring in bags. All they do, it doesn't cost a thing, they just have to stop by the store, mark their calendars for January 27th, and we will get them properly recycled in Portland."