John,

A trip to Costco can score you some unexpected finds and great discounts. But these deals often have a big downside: a trash can full of packaging waste.

We try our best to reduce and reuse, but it's hard when stores wrap their products in absurd amounts of plastic and cardboard. This is especially true at Costco, where tiny items are often intentionally sold in abnormally large packages.1

That's why we're asking Costco to end its use of excessive packaging. As the third largest retailer in the world, Costco could significantly reduce waste by simply using less packaging.2

Tell Costco CEO Ron Vachris: Ditch the excessive packaging today.

Thank you for taking action,

Faye Park
President

1. Dominick Reuter, "Why Costco uses curiously large packaging for tiny products," Business Insider, February 26, 2023.
2. "Top 100 Retailers 2024 List," National Retail Federation, last accessed March 27, 2025.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: U.S. PIRG <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Subject: Tell Costco: Excessive packaging is absurd and wasteful
To: John xxxxxx <[email protected]>

John,

Costco can feel larger than life. Take a stroll down its vast aisles and you might find pallets piled high with sneakers. Turn the corner and there's the biggest vat of snack mix you've ever seen perched atop a neck-ache inducingly tall shelf.

Epic proportions are par for the course at Costco, and this extends to its packaging waste.1

Few trips to this big box store end without a garbage can overflowing with shrink wrap, oversized cardboard, and other extra packaging.

Join us in urging Costco to ditch its wasteful and unnecessary packaging practices.

Buying in bulk can reduce the need for single-serving packaging, but Costco's taken whole-selling in the opposite direction by using even more packaging: A shopping spree at Costco is likely to turn up tiny cosmetics containers and gift cards mounted to giant sheets of cardboard secured in oversized plastic shells.2

If it seems excessive, it is -- but that doesn't mean it's accidental.

Costco's excessive packaging is by design; the company claims that it allows for easier shipping and better displays.3 But this choice has hidden costs.

Once these products are purchased, all that packaging has to go somewhere. And we know that more than 91% of plastic waste ends up in a landfill, incinerated, or in other parts of our natural environment.4

Neither of those are good options. Plastic from landfills wastes space and can leach into waterways, endangering water quality and the health of marine life. And when plastic is incinerated, it releases nearly 100 different types of pollutants into the air, many of which have been linked to cancer and other health conditions.5

Tell Costco: Unnecessary packaging is putting our health and the environment at risk.

Approximately 36% of all plastics produced are used in packaging.6 As the third largest retailer in the world, Costco could significantly reduce global plastic production by simply using less packaging.7

Like the contents of Pandora's box, once plastic's out in the environment, there's no getting rid of it. Each scrap of unnecessary packaging trashed after a couple days on the shelf will likely still be polluting our planet hundreds of years from now.

Tell Costco: No shopping display is worth hundreds of years of pollution.

Thank you for helping us move beyond plastic pollution,

Faye Park
President

1. Dominick Reuter, "Why Costco uses curiously large packaging for tiny products," Business Insider, February 26, 2023.
2. Matt Casale, "Why does Costco use so much packaging?," PIRG, March 22, 2023.
3. Dominick Reuter, "Why Costco uses curiously large packaging for tiny products," Business Insider, February 26, 2023.
4. "Trash in America," PIRG, September 28, 2021.
5. "The plastics industry is pushing to burn, pollute and waste more," PIRG, December 20, 2024.
6. "Our planet is choking on plastic," UN Environment Programme, last accessed March 27, 2025.
7. "Top 100 Retailers 2024 List," National Retail Federation, last accessed March 27, 2025.

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