Bulletin Bags: Environmentally Friendly Reusable Shopping Bags

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that reusable bags are popping up everywhere as an eco-friendly marketing vehicle. What better way to increase awareness of your organization than to put your branding on reusable grocery bags for everyone to see…over and over and over again?

So, if you’ve been on the fence about purchasing custom printed reusable grocery bags, we have the perfect opportunity for you: our two most popular reusable bags, the Big Thunder and Little Thunder, are on sale for the remainder of 2010! Made from durable, 100 GSM polypropylene, they feature wrap-around handles and roomy gussets (with bottom inserts for extra stability), and come in nine popular colors.

Not sure how you can use customized reusable bags in your marketing toolkit? Our clients have used the Big Thunder Reusable Bag and Little Thunder Grocery Totes for:

School and nonprofit fundraisers

Trade show and event giveaways

Farmers markets

Client and prospect gifts

Retail resale

Weddings

Community awareness campaigns

 Museums (shown with optional full color heat transfer)

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Philippines has proclaimed every Wednesday as “Reusable Bag Day”. The move is meant to encourage the public to return to basics, to move away from their wasteful habits and help prevent environmental problems.

The announcement comes on the heels of a government-signed agreement with the Earthday Network Philippines and 12 supermarket chains to help reduce the use of plastic bags in the country. As part of Reusable Bag Day, no free plastic bags will be given to customers. Also expressing an interest in joining the government’s efforts are plastics manufacturers in that country.

So, why does it seem like all the ban proposals in the United States are getting shot down? Actually, that’s not the case at all.  Despite the recent defeat of a statewide ban in California, there has been a recent explosion of local ordinances banning or taxing plastic shopping bags. Some examples:

• Bans take effect in January in Brownsville, Texas, and Hawaii's Kauai and Maui counties. In February, American Samoa's ban goes into effect.
• Washington, D.C., passed the first-of-its-kind law in the United States to charge shoppers for disposable plastic and paper bags as a way to cut back on trash and clean up the Anacostia River**.
• Plastic bags are already outlawed in San Francisco, Malibu, Fairfax and Palo Alto (CA)— as well as Westport (CT), Bethel (AK), and Edmonds (WA).
• This month, a ban in North Carolina's Outer Banks was expanded from large retailers to all stores.
• Other bans in the works in California alone include Los Angeles County, San Jose, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, Berkeley and Santa Clara County.

**It is interesting to note is that the DC tax is bringing in far less revenue than expected.

The latest data reveals the city collected just 1/3 of the estimated revenue from the $0.05 tax, which correlates with an informal survey that showed the use of bags by shoppers at grocery stores is down by 50%, while some big name have reported that bag use by their customers has fallen by 60%.

Despite not generating a lot of revenue, the bag gap is being cheered by proponents of the legislation. Why? Because funds generated by the tax are allocated toward clean-up efforts along the Anacostia River -- a polluted urban waterway choked with discarded plastic bags. Fewer bags in general circulation means fewer bags landing in the river.

Supermarket chain efforts to reduce paper and plastic bag distribution are working—and the numbers are starting to speak for themselves.

Publix Super Markets estimates a daily paper and plastic bag reduction of more than one million per day since it launched its reusable bag initiatives in 2007. Recently, the chain announced the number of bags it’s saved since mid 2007 has surpassed the 1 billion mark!

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Massachusetts Food Association has announced a 25 percent reduction in the number of disposable paper and plastic shopping bags used since 2007 at 12 supermarket chains, including 384 stores. This is well on the way to the goal of a reduction of at least 33 percent by 2013.

Reusable grocery bags, long more popular in Europe than North America, are catching on in Canada as well.

Controversial when it was first implemented, Toronto's plastic bag bylaw, the first and only one of its kind in any large Canadian city, marked its first anniversary this summer. Under the bylaw, Toronto retailers are required to charge a nickel for every single-use plastic retail shopping bag requested by customers.

In  Ontario alone, one supermarket chain says its plastic bag distribution rate has fallen between 70 and 80 percent, while another claims a 72 percent decrease. A third chain reports that its national plastic bag distribution has dropped 55 percent and that it diverted 1.3 billion plastic bags from landfill sites in 2009.

These impressive reductions all have one common thread: outreach and employee training.

Publix trains employees to increase the number of items per bag, implements bag reduction goals for each store, produces campaigns to encourage the use of reusable bags, and donates reusable bags to non-profits and partner organizations.

In Massachusetts, each supermarket chain has implemented programs to encourage customers to use fewer disposable bags, while training staff to reduce wasteful distribution of bags. Chains are offering reusable bags for sale and providing cash incentives for reusable bag use, accepting used plastic bags for recycling, and posting instructional signs reminding patrons not to forget to bring their reusable bags.

Some states are considering (or have enacted) bans on plastic bags, but in Maine, environmentalists and retailers are working together to encourage the use of reusable bags—voluntarily.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine is participating in a voluntary effort by retailers to encourage Mainers to use reusable bags instead of carrying home their groceries in throw away plastic bags. Also on board for the voluntary effort instead of an outright ban or tax is the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.  A plastic bag ban was under consideration in committee, as were taxes or fees on the throw away bags, but lawmakers chose a voluntary effort, and a hard goal of reducing plastic bag use by at least a third by 2013.

Republican Sen. Chris Rector of Thomaston serves on the Business, Research and Economic Development Committee, which shares jurisdiction over the issue. He says lawmakers should wait and see if the voluntary effort can meets its target. And he says there is another reason to hold off on a ban: a Maine university might develop a cellulose-based plastic bag, which could potentially eliminate the petroleum-based plastic bag.

Since the Natural Resources Council of Maine is supporting the voluntary effort to encourage reusable bag use, it would oppose any ban proposed in the new legislative session. But  if the reduction targets are not met by 2013, and if other states do ban plastic bags, don’t be surprised to see a push for a ban in Maine.

As a footnote, the proposed ban on plastic bags in California failed on August 31 in the Legislature. The measure passed the Assembly in June and had the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but faced a withering and well-financed advertising and lobbying campaign from the plastic bag manufacturing industry. California would have been the first state in the nation to have a full ban on plastic bags, a goal some environmentalists have been pushing for years.