Wal*Mart: Diamond Sponsor

The Diamond Sponsor for GTH 2008 is Wal*Mart, a company represented through the conference's three days in the exposition hall.

Wal*Mart's online presence offers a variety of information about the corporation's work in the field of sustainability.

In fact, one of the sub-channels of the site is decidate to just that phrase, and here's the link to Wal*Mart's Sustainability efforts.

At the expo, Wal*Mart was showing off its reusable bags, which are currently in play throughout the company's stores.

Here's a blip about the impact they're having:

Every year, nearly one trillion plastic shopping and grocery bags are used around the world. The vast majority are then sent to a landfill. To help reduce the number of plastic bags that are wasted each year, and to engage our customers in helping us reach our sustainability goals, we introduced reusable shopping bags in October 2007.

Made from 85-percent-recycled content, the bags hold more than twice the amount of an average plastic bag. Customers can find the black reusable bags in Wal-Mart stores and purchase them for $1 each. At the end of their life-span, Wal-Mart will recycle the bags.

Our estimates show that during its average five year lifetime, a reusable bag can eliminate the need for at least 100 disposable plastic bags. To date we have sold enough bags to eliminate the need for at least 400 million disposable plastic bags. In April 2008, as part of Earth Month, Wal-Mart gave away 1 million reusable bags, reducing the need for another 100 million disposable bags.