Walmart’s Sam’s Club introduces label-free water bottles in China

Sam’s Club, the membership-only supermarket chain owned by Walmart, has debuted label-free water bottles at its locations in China. The move aims to reduce plastic, ink, and energy use while facilitating recycling. 

The Sam’s Club water brand is sold in multipacks, and its nutrition facts are displayed on the outer packaging of the case.

The water is sourced from three protected water resources across China: Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang province, Wanlv Lake in Guangdong province, and Danjiangkou Reservoir in Hubei province.

Walmart says that packaging is “a strategic priority” to reduce its operational footprint.

According to the retail giant, Sam’s Club China is updating its packaging across multiple products by removing “unnecessary” plastic and using more recyclable materials, as part of Walmart’s larger sustainability and Project Gigaton goals.

The company launched its Project Gigaton in 2017, alongside suppliers and NGOs. The aim is to reduce or avoid 1 billion metric tons of GHG emissions by 2030. However, at the start of the year, the retailer announced that it expects to miss its 2025 packaging sustainability targets.

Replacing plastic film

Sam’s Club China describes its method to improve its packaging as “straightforward.” 

“Remove plastic components where possible, replace them with better alternatives, and redesign processes to make packaging easier to reuse and recycle. Sam’s Club now uses aqueous coating on paperboard packaging for multiple items, replacing biaxially oriented PP (BOPP) film lamination to make the boxes much more recyclable.”

The packaging of the retailer’s Member’s Mark freeze dried instant coffee powder, a popular product in China, was also recently updated to remove the PET window patching film. The new packaging applies aqueous coating to replace BOPP film lamination, and reduces plastic by approximately 5.8 grams per box.