As part of our county's Trash Reduction Campaign, we want to target outreach to reduce the number of disposable plastic bag consumption in our community. We are in the development stage of this project, and are seeking ideas. We would like to offer canvas bags at all outreach events to be given out with a committment form signed by the resident, committing to bringing the bag next time they go grocery shopping. We are also thinking about partnering with grocery store chains & independent stores in our community to offer incentives & to educate employees & customers. Other ideas - a photo contest to submit photo of them using their bag at grocery store or farmers market with prizes & display collage at grocery store or to use in outreach events. I have looked at the case study on bag reuse at Shop Rite stores in New York on this website. *Has anyone else implemented a similar project & would be willing to share ideas about outreach materials (committment form, prompts, employee training)?
[email protected]
Plastic Shopping Bag Reduction
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Sarah,
We have found that the math is pretty compelling. 6,500,000 = Bay Area population 1,300,000 = Number of households? (for arguments sake how about 5 folks per households average) 10 = number of grocery bags per week per household 50 = number of weeks in the year 650,000,000= number of grocery bags per year It's little wonder that one of the common sites at American landfills are plastic bags blowing around in the wind. Imagine how many are being land filled every year... If only one tenth of one percent leak out of the system (recycling and landfills) you have 650,000 bags blowing around as litter the Bay Area. i.e. Clean Water Act NPDES TMDL litter violations waiting to happen. We have often followed up the math with statements like, "When we use things that have no perceived value (i.e. are as cheap as paper) it is not surprising that they end up as litter." When attempting large scale conversion we found the cost of canvas ($5-15 per bag retail) vs. paper or plastic creates an economic hurdle for most families. We also found that life cycle stats weren't very tangible for most of the general public. What seemed to work consistently was relating the behavior change to reducing litter. "We know no one here intentionally litters plastic bags. When you have over half a billion being used it's not surprising that a small percentage ends up as litter. If only one tenth of one percent of the bags in Bay Area somehow blow out of trash cans, car windows, etc, we would have something like half a million bags blowing through our streets and eventually into the San Francisco Bay."
Bonne Chance,
Jeff Hohensee
FYI< this was just released this morning by the EPIC, a plastics industry group. There is also a chain called A&P and they have been providing a mechanism to take back plastic bags for quite some time. There is just little fanfare that goes with it. Plastic Bag Recycling at LOEB stores in Ottawa! Ottawa residents once again have the opportunity to recycle more plastics! At a media launch held in Ottawa June 6, 2006, LOEB announced that it will begin plastic bag recycling in Ottawa. Through a unique partnership effort between the City of Ottawa, Loeb, United Way and EPIC/CPIA, all 19 LOEB stores in Ottawa will now accept back any plastic bags for recycling. As well, LOEB will be recycling bags at all of its other Ontario stores. Serge Lavoie, CPIA, spoke on behalf of the industry at the launch and applauded this collaborative' win-win' effort. EPIC initiated discussions and provided LOEB with the Best Practices Guide for In-store recycling and market information support for this unique endeavor. Mayor Bob Chiarelli thanked all partners for their collaborative efforts in offering Ottawa residents this community based solution where LOEB will provide a portion of the proceeds from the bags recycled to the United Way. The launch received extensive media attention with coverage on local French and English radio and television. Plastic tubs and bags were removed from the city's curbside recycling program in 2004 when the city was faced with intense pressure to make significant budget cuts. In response to public outcry regarding the removal of plastics, the recycling of plastic tubs and lids was reinstated last August. In today's announcement Mayor Chiarelli applauded Loeb for their leadership and stewardship with getting bags back for recycling once again.
L. E. Johannson, B.E.S. (Hons), M.Sc.,
FRSA President E2 Management Corporation (E2M)
113 Mountainview Road South
Georgetown, Ontario CANADA L7G 4K2
Tel: (1) 905 - 873 - 9484
Fax: (1) 905 - 873 - 3054
Email: [email protected]
Websites: www.e2management.com
www.14000registry.com
www.glassworks.org
One of the respondents mentioned $5-15 per bag - you might want to explore getting them Australian Made. Try Bonza Bags near Phillip Island - they are from memory closer to $2 per bag and good quality - not sure what shipping would cost but the company is quite environmentally conscious. I'd avoid the cheaper Asian made ones as they tend to shrink when washed and don't have the heavy duty jute handles. Our IGA supermarket is plastic bag free. Paper bags have a 10 cent levy, and all new residents receive 2 calico bags each on arrival, so a family of 4 would receive 8 bags. Bags are also for sale at various outlets with a dollar or so mark-up. The trend in Australia is growing with more and more small towns making the switch to plastic free. One key is to look at the WIIFM principle - "What's in it for me". What do shop owners want? Their bottom line is often the most important. So how much do they spend on plastic bags each year? That represents a saving. Bulk ordering of calico bags can support the shop owners, with all participating shops getting their logo on the bag, and getting to purchase the bags at a reduced or subsidised cost, and on selling them for profit. Therefore: $$ saving on no more plastic bags AND $$ profit on sale of calico bags. Disposal of cardboard boxes is also an expense for many shops. They could provide their boxes for shoppers at 10 cents a box, thus, more profit and more savings. If shoppers have to pay 10 cents, either they will be happy to pay the levy, or they will start to remember to bring their own bag. Do a web search for this initiative in Australia - there are lots of good case studies out there now.
Just a few ideas - hope it helps,
Ella Boyen
Environment Manager Ayers Rock Resort.
Coles Bay on Tasmania's East Coast has successfully implemented a program that has reduced plastic bag use down to nearly zero, zip. I think it was a partnership between the local community and Planet Ark, visit www.planetark.com.au for more info.
Timothy Phillips
Sustainability & Environmental Science
Pitt & Sherry
PO Box 94, Hobart Tas 7001
199 Macquarie St. Hobart
t: 03 6210 1481
f: 03 6223 1299
m: 0408 033 353
e:[email protected]
We did a very similar campaign last year during Waste Reduction Week. We partnered with a grocery store chain (owned by a local family so it was an easy sell) to set up our booth and hand out cloth bags to customers as they entered the store. For that week, every time you used a cloth bag, reusable container or cardboard box for your groceries you received a ballot for a gift certificate at the store. Some stores are actually continuing this and having monthly draws ($25 gift certificates). We advertised in local papers and on local radio about Waste Reduction Week, the reusable bag campaign and where we were going to be giving out the bags. Lots of people came in to just get a bag-they weren't even grocery shopping. People love free stuff :0) The campaign also encouraged stores to purchase their own reusable bags which they now sell in the stores. We have not done any follow-up in regards to people continuing to use the bags. It would be interesting to re-visit the stores and see if the use of reusable bags has continued, increased, etc. This would be a good activity for Waste Reduction Week again this fall. Good luck with your campaign. It's definitely a worthwhile effort because we accept grocery bags in our recycling program and still see thousands at our landfill every year. I think Reduce is the key to this mounting problem.
Elizabeth Kenrick
Communications Supervisor
Ottawa Valley Waste Recovery Centre
900 Woito Station Road Pembroke, ON K8A 6W5
PH:613-735-7537
FX:613-735-1837
www.ovwrc.com
Further to my previous post: Green Bags can be ordered from www.greenbag.info/
Rebecca Gilling.
Project Manager Planet Ark
PO Box 4 Wentworth Falls NSW 2782
Ph: 02 4757 8989
Mob: 0414 922376
Email: [email protected]
Planet Ark Environmental Foundation launched its Plastic Bag Reduction Campaign in 2003. It started with a liaison between us and a tourist town called Coles Bay on Tasmania's east coast. The small scale of this community allowed for a cooperative effort among all shopkeepers to 'go plastic bag free'. They provided branded paper and calico alternatives. Planet Ark then took the story of Australia's first plastic bag free town to the media, and at the same time, called on the Australian government to consider imposing a plastic bag levy, following the Irish government's phenomenal success. Their imposition of a 25c levy reduced plastic shopping bags in Ireland by 90% in a couple of years. Central to the success of their campaign and ours (which has seen plastic bag use in Australia reduce by one third) has been the Green Bag, another invention of the Irish. This is a strong woven plastic bag with a flat bottom, which stands up at the checkout, allowing for much easier filling than the calico ones. You now see them everywhere; they're sold at the checkout by the two major supermarket chains, for $1. For more information go to: planetark.com Click on the Plastic Bags icon underneath the banner: Planet Ark's Campaigns Rebecca Gilling.
Project Manager Planet Ark
PO Box 4 Wentworth Falls NSW 2782
Ph: 02 4757 8989
Mob: 0414 922376
Email: [email protected]
I don't think it's a good idea to encourage stores to start charging for plastic bags, especially smaller, family-run stores. A store was opened not far from here that charged five cents per bag, and many customers were outraged when they found out. A lot of people seem to think that a free plastic bag is their right to have, and being charged for it is unfair. The store is really struggling now. Ralph's-- a supermarket chain here in Southern California-- has a program where they will take five cents off your bill for each bag you bring in. I've seen people use the program, and used it myself, but it doesn't seem to have caught on in a big way. I think that's probably because it is not very well publicized. Anyway, I think something more along those lines is a better option, because customers are not going to see that as a burden. (Carrot, not stick.) I agree that the fastest and most effective method to reduce the consumption of plastic bags would be to start charging for them, but it would involve some major headaches.
Jeff Lewis
Administrative Operations Assistant
Recycling Program City of Victorville
760-955-8615
Hi
There is a town in Australia that elected to do away with plastic bags earlier this year. The towns people organised the alternatives - so it wasn't imposed on them.
I am a cashier at Whole Foods Market. We give a bag refund of .05 per reused bag. They can be any bag. I find the biggest barrier to this is habit. I inform people about this refund and their response is usually "I forgot them in the car" or "I have so many at home I should bring them in". Getting .05 doesn't appear to be a real motivator. I would love to charge for the bags. It may be ugly at first but I think it is the quickest and only way to get to reducing a wasteful expensive practice.
in goodwill,
peg
Peggy Harp
Green Mission Task Force
Whole Foods Market SWPLN
2201 Preston Rd Suite C Plano, Texas 75093
971-612-6729
972-867-0414 Fax
BTW has anyone ever researched if people are throwing all those plastic (and paper) bags away from grocery shopping, right after first use? I use all the bags (plastic & paper) for 2nd, 3rd uses and then recycle the plastic ones. Paper either goes in trash or compost. Is there data on this? This is my personal barrier to using cloth all the time - then I would need to buy bags (which usually are < $.05 each) for various uses.
Anne Peters Boulder,
CO USA
This may be more a question about what is sustainable than about fostering sustainable practices, but it addresses how we do our due diligence regarding the question of sustainability and what we promote. This is rather a side issue overshadowed by the greater good of promoting reusable grocery bags. I'm interested in information about the complete cycle of grocery & other plastic bag recycling, including processing and end-product manufacture. The recycling of plastic bags has come to supermarket chains with fanfare and existed fitfully over many years (since around 1990), but I've never been clear on the quality control requirements and manufacturing fate of this material. In my former work in recycling, I ran into enough bogus recycling-for-show systems that secretly disposed of the material to be skeptical (one infamous example being the Walmart roll-off recycling stations of the early 1990s which were so poorly thought out that no practical quality control or handling system could be worked out for the collected material once they were put into operation). It would settle my mind to know that these plastic bag recycling systems are real and contribute to sustainable recycled products. Paper grocery sacks are fully compatible with the corrugated carton ("cardboard") baling-for-pay recycling systems used by virtually every supermarket and grocery store in the U.S. I've never heard of a food store offering to take paper grocery sacks back to recycle with their cardboard, even though they would actually be paid for the baled material. I can only surmise that their cost to purchase and store the paper bags is significantly more than that for the plastic bags, and that they thus have no incentive to make the paper sacks appear any more "green" than they already are, even though recycling them would almost certainly be more financially viable than recycling plastic bags.
- Bill Carter
Here is some info that may help: On average, 82.6% of Australian households say they re-use plastic bags (ABS, Environmental Issues: Peoples Views and Practices, 4602.0, March 2000). (ABS = Australian Bureau of Statistics) Less than 1% of the total number of plastic bags that Australians use each year are being re-used by Australian households (ABS, Environmental Issues: Peoples Views and Practices, 4602.0, March 2000). Only 10 % of households take their plastic bags to a central collection point, other than a dump, for recycling (ABS, Environmental Issues: Peoples Views and Practices, 4602.0, March 2000). More than 18 million tonnes of waste ends up in landfill each year in Australia. On average, all Australian capital cities will reach their present landfill capacity by 2010. The amount of waste placed in landfill each year in Australia is enough to cover the state of Victoria. The following is from Planet Ark: Less than 3% of Australia's plastic bags are currently being recycled, despite recycling facilities being available at major supermarkets. In many council areas, plastic bags are the single main contaminant of kerbside recycling. Plastic bags are not free to consumers - they are actually adding an estimated $173 million a year to Australia's grocery bills. Only an estimated 19% of the 3.7 billion plastic supermarket shopping bags handed out in Australia every year, are being reused by households as kitchen bin liners. 20 million Australians use 6.9 billion plastic check-out bags per year. That's nearly 1 plastic bag per person per day or 345 bags per person per year. A person's use of a plastic check-out bag can be counted in minutes - however long it takes to get from the shops to their homes. Plastic bags however, can take between 15 and 1000 years to break down in the environment. At least 80 million plastic bags end up as litter on our beaches, streets and parks. Australian local and State Governments spend over $200 million a year picking up litter. The amount of petroleum used to make one plastic bag would drive a car about 115 metres. The 6.9 billion plastic check-out bags we use every year is enough to drive a car 800 million kilometres or nearly 20,000 times around the world - i.e 4 round trips to the Sun.
Thanks and Regards,
Ella Boyen
Voyages NT & WA Environment Manager
Ayers Rock Resort, Alice Springs Resort,
Kings Canyon Resort, El Questro Wilderness Park
PO Box 46 Yulara NT 0872
T: +61 8 8957 7320
F: +61 8 8957 7325
M: 0417 616 996
www.voyages.com.au
Hi there Peg
I live in NZ and one of our supermarket chains charges 10c for plastic bags; otherwise you can pack your groceries for free using boxes they provide. It is amazing how many people choose to buy the plastic bags. I don't understand it.
Nardene
[email protected]
I have been told by a surprising number of people, that they actually prefer getting plastic shopping bags vs. paper ones. The two top reasons (in my informal survey) have been: 1.The people (usually older) like using them as a small-sized garbage bag. I assume this thinking is based on the fact that garbage bags are usually big and of course people fill them up so then they are too heavy to lift. I wonder if some of the rationale is also that the bags are free whereas you have to pay for your trash bags. More faulty logic created by the hidden costs of modern society. 2.I've also heard older people mention that the plastic shopping bags make it convenient to carry heavy items (1 or 2 items per bag, thus increasing the number of bags used by even one person!)
Janice Kepka
UW-Madison Environmental Resources Center Farm and Home Environmental Management Programs
Room 303 Hiram Smith Hall 1545 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608/263-4695
Hi there:
In the early 90s everyone here was carrying reusable cloth bags, but they have really gone by the wayside. I wonder why? Is there some cachet to having plastic bags from certain stores? Do they get dirty and people don't want to wash them? Did they all get torn and unusable? Are they just not available anymore - the market for those who would use them became saturated, so manufacturers or local sewers could not make any more money and had to find other products, so supply is extinguished? I would very much like to know what happened. I heard a documentary on South Africa which described local craftspeople using the plastic bags for all sorts of projects, which I found interesting. They cut them into strips and crochet them into hats and all sorts of things. If anyone on the list is from regions where they are less prevalent and can speak to this I would be very interested to hear your insights. If the problem is that people don't want to have to wash a bag, wouldn't it be interesting to take this crochetting idea and make netted shopping bags with the bags, so that they can then be recycled, but they would have had some additional use in the meantime. They could be quite pretty with different colours of bags (of the same type of plastic) woven in.
Just a thought!
Zanna in Winnipeg
I do not work specifically in this area but I can advise from personal experience that you might want to consider partnering with as many retail outlets that you can and encourage a rebate for plastic bags not used. Here in Victoria BC one grocery store credits your bill three cents for every bag you bring and reuse including old plastic ones. They also sell reusable bags as do the provincial government liquor stores. So that is another idea, encourage retail outlets to promote and demonstrate their ethic "we care" by selling reusable bags as a marketing effort. I have heard that in some jurisdiction in the world they have imposed a tax on plastic bags and understand it might be as high as 15 cents to encourage alternatives. Here in Victoria BC plastic makes up 14% of the waste in the landfill, now some of it consists of plastic bags for garbage but we do have a hard plastic recycling program so most of it is bags, plastic wrap for food, Styrofoam meat trays etc.
For your consideration,
Forrest