In an effort to get half of its shoppers to use reusable bags, Wilton Go Green has set up kiosks to distribute free bags to shoppers.
Two thousand reusable grocery bags will be given away over the next several weeks from kiosks spread around the Connecticut town. The bags are adorned with a town image and designs by young Wilton artists, who won a recycling and conservation contest.
Earth Day is April 22, and it’s not unusual for retailers to offer special incentives to encourage their customers to think about the environment. As usual, we love to hear about reusable grocery bags as vehicles for these promotions!
Here are a few Earth Day-related promos that have hit our radar.
Chicago: Big Bowl restaurants are handing out free “Earth Matters” grocery totes on April 22 with every takeout order. Every time you reuse the bag to pick up food, receive $0.50 off for the life of the reusable bag.
Texas: H-E-B is giving away 250,000 custom printed reusable shopping bags on Saturday, April 16, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Customers who bring in five or more plastic bags for recycling will receive a coupon for one free reusable H-E-B shopping bag. Last year, H-E-B and its customers recycled 3.87 million pounds of plastic bags across the state!
Some supermarket chains, including Kroger and Safeway, believe that modest per-reusable-bag rebates at checkout have done little to remind customers to bring reusable grocery bags.
Kroger Co., the nation’s largest supermarket chain, had stopped (in many regions) giving 3- to 5-cent rebates or fuel discounts for each reusable bag. Company officials say they’re focusing more on promotions and educational efforts, as they found no significant difference between reusable shopping bag use in markets with rebates and those without them.
Bag It, a documentary produced and directed by Suzan Beraza, depicts Americans’ single-use consumption obsession of plastic bottles, plastic bags and to-go cups.
The film follows Telluride (Colorado) resident Jeb Berrier’s personal quest to learn more about the effects plastic consumption has on the environment and our health. It is an eye-opening glimpse into the usage of plastic and a wake-up call for how reckless its consumption is.
The ultimate question the movie raises: How does the brief usage of a disposable product that lasts forever make sense?
Last fall, we told you about the Best Bagger Championships. The contest shifted from plastic bags to reusable grocery bags at its 2010 event.
The 2011 Best Bagger Championships were held last week, and Krystal Smith, a bagger at the Hannaford supermarket in Burlington, Vt., was crowned the best grocery bagger in America. She completed her challenge in 38 seconds!
The contest is a year-long, nationwide program in which the best-of-the-best grocery baggers in the country compete for great prizes and the title of America’s Best Bagger. Contestants are judged on speed, bag-building technique, weight distribution between bags, and style, attitude and appearance.
Now that you’re dedicated to using cool printed reusable grocery bags, what will you do with your surplus of plastics that have accumulated around your house? Here are two nifty ideas that made news this week.
1. Make gasoline! A Japanese inventor has created a machine suitable for home use that can turn plastic waste into fuel. Akinori Ito’s machine heats up household plastics, traps the vapors in a system of pipes and water chambers that cools and condenses them back into crude oil. The crude is suitable for use in generators and some types of stoves and can be further refined into gasoline.
Reusable sandwich and snack bags are becoming more popular, but there are still millions of American households that still use plastic sandwich bags. In response to that, Ziploc and RecycleBank launched a new recycling program to help reduce the environmental impact of Ziploc plastic bags. The new program includes a rewards component to customers who commit to recycling their used Ziploc bags instead of throwing them away.
SC Johnson, owner of the Ziploc brand, understands the recycling limitations of its products and is thinking of different ways to offset the environmental footprint of its plastic bags. Now, it’s easier than ever to recycle Ziploc bags. Consumers stop by any store that offers a plastic-bag recycling program and place used, clean, and dry Ziploc bags in plastic shopping bag recycling collection bins.
The Lantern, Ohio State University’s campus newspaper, reports that OSU Campus Dining Services joined the campus-wide effort to go green this fall by making the switch from plastic bags to reusable polyester bags. Prior to the start of the 2011-2012 school year, plastic bags alone were available at most campus dining locations for students to carry their meals home in.
Last fall, more than 10,000 reusable grocery bags were distributed to students—at no cost—in an effort to eliminate plastic bags. OSU has been toying with printed reusable grocery bags since last year, when orange reusable bags could be purchased in residence dining halls.
The orange bags were purchased with Campus Dining Services money, as were the black reusable grocery bags. Sustainability committees are reimbursing the money as part of campus’s sustainability project.
Remember our blog back in 2009 about Colorado ski towns Telluride and Aspen? The residents battled to see who would hold bragging rights over using the most reusable bags for shopping—and earn new solar panels for its high school. That original competition resulted in the 2009 Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) Reusable Bag Challenge.
Why are we writing about this two years later? The town that won the Reusable Bag Challenge just debuted a new $50,000 solar power system at its middle school—a system that was created because of the town’s victory back in 2009.
In Hawaii, Kauai and Maui are leading the way by banning single use plastic bags that easily find their way into water streams, ocean currents and the stomachs of birds and fish. The laws went into effect on January 11.
On Kauai, all commercial businesses, including restaurants and takeout food establishments, are restricted from providing plastic bags at checkout. Recyclable paper bags and biodegradable bags will replace plastic. Businesses that fail to comply face a $250 per-day fine for the first notice, $500 a day for the second notice, and $1,000 a day for the third. Plastic bags are permitted for raw meat, poultry, produce and bagging up bulk foods. Dry cleaning plastic garment bags are exempt from the ban.
