Is your local Trader Joe’s store leaking climate-polluting gases? Help us gather data on these emissions!
Supermarkets are leaking potent greenhouse gases called HFCs from refrigeration and it’s a huge climate problem. In fact, refrigerant leaks from U.S. supermarkets are the emissions equivalent of adding 9.5 million cars to the road each year! Eliminating HFCs and improving refrigeration can avoid half a degree of global warming and 460 billion tons of greenhouse gases in the coming decades.
Trader Joe’s has a bad record of emitting refrigerant gases that hurt the climate and the ozone, and the company doesn’t follow best practices by reporting if it’s finally switched to better refrigerants. The good news is, it’s pretty easy to find out.
That’s why we’re working to crowdsource refrigerant labels at your local Trader Joe’s! Help us find out what kind of gas is in your store, so we can keep the pressure on the company to step up their action.
How can you investigate your local store? All you need is a camera phone.
1. Find the label on the refrigerated shelves.
On most refrigerator cases in a store there is a label that lists the refrigerant number. Start in the refrigerated foods section for dairy. Take a look up to the top of the refrigerated shelves for the label.
The refrigerant can be clearly marked, or you’ll just see R followed by a few numbers (most commonly, R22, R404A, or R134a - these are all different types of HFCs!), and sometimes you’ll see more than one refrigerant listed. That’s normal too! Look for something like this:
2. Turn on geotagging on your device
This helps us confirm the location of the store for our map.
3. Take a photo of the label
Make sure the refrigerant is in frame!
4. Email climatefriendlysupermarkets@eia-global.org and include:
The Geotagged Image and ensure geographic information is shared:
On an iOS device, using the built in photo app, you must choose to send the image "Actual Size"
On an android device, you must attach your image from your phone storage and not from the google cloud
Store name (Trader Joe’s)
Store Address and Zip Code (Optional backup in case of geotagging data error)
5. Check back soon to see if your store was added to the map.
Have questions? Email us at climatefriendlysupermarkets@eia-global.org