The first thing you notice when you visit the Mill Bay Thrifty Foods is the old brick building with its large archway, trees and a park-like setting. When you enter the store you discover an outdoor market-like setting where flowers are showcased and fresh produce is displayed.

While the Mill Bay store employees have a reputation of being friendly, they are also creative, industrious, enthusiastic, and concerned about the environment. It is the combination of these qualities that prompted them to form the Green Team. They focus their efforts on reducing the store’s environmental impact by promoting the 3Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle.

Customers are encouraged to use reusable shopping bags by a large banner at the store front and a sandwich board inside the store asking if they remembered to bring their reusable shopping bags and by a “Bring Your Own Bag” contest open exclusively to customers that used their own shopping bags.

The Green Team also works to raise environmental awareness among their co-workers, encouraging them to focus more attention on the 3Rs while at work. These activities include posting signs in work areas reminding co-workers to use less paper by using the photocopier’s double-sided printing function and the placement of additional recyclable and organics material collection receptacles in the office, lunchroom and production areas.