Over the past week, Whole Foods has got its share of press and blogosphere coverage on its discontinued practice of offering plastic bags at checkout. Slated to take effect by Earth Day (April 22), the company’s move has received a fair amount of criticism along with acclaim, since plastic bags take less energy to produce than paper bags (to be offered alongside Whole Foods’ reusable bags) and generate less waste.

The New York Times and Treehugger examine these issues and conclude that the announcement is still positive and noteworthy. The reasons cited are the paper bags Whole Foods uses happen to be made of recycled paper and the influence the grocer chain can yield to encourage mega-marts to reconsider the bag issue. Hopefully, it can also encourage more of us to remember to do the shopping version of BYOB.

Now I’ve done a quick summary of the recent buzz, I want to consider another green move Whole Foods has made which seems to have received less fanfare. Upon my recent visit, I noted the Bowery (NYC) location was also using hot foods and salad containers made from compostable materials.

I’m actually not familiar with “fibers of cattails” (not to be confused with “cat tails” since that might not be so animal-friendly) as an eco-friendly material. I am, however, impressed with the refridgerator- and microwave-safe properties of these to-go containers.

The boxes actually remind me of a similar product I was introduced to at the Columbia Social Enterprise Conference in October (2007). The product, VerTerra, is heat-resistant, disposable (but reusable), biodegradable dinnerware made from fallen, dried, organically-grown palm tree leaves. At the conference, I spoke to the founder, Michael Dwork, who at the time was only targeting the catering and event planning market due to the more favorable margins. I have since looked forward to VerTerra’s mass market debut, not only because the dinnerware is environmentally-friendly and healthy (free of bleach, plastic, wax, and chemicals), but because the company is committed to creating fair labor jobs and conditions for its craftspeople in south Asia. VerTerra is truly a triple bottom line company.

I’m not sure where Whole Foods has sourced its takeout containers, but I would be curious to know. I’d also like to know how the cattails’ fiber stacks up against other touted green materials. I’ll save the answers and accompanying research for another post…