The best laid plans, and so on.
This Vancouver market is handing out embarrassing plastic bags to customers
Currently, East West charges customers five cents per embarrassing plastic bag that they take. They plan to continue handing out the specialty bags for the foreseeable future, but note that they’d rather no one take them. Instead, they hope to start a conversation about single-use plastic bags, as well as influence shoppers to bring their own bags – whether they are shopping at East West or somewhere else.
But they were just too popular.
Problem in the bagging area: the plastic-shaming scheme that went very, very wrong
So perhaps the way to deal with the plastic crisis isn’t to daub single-use plastics with well-designed, slyly aspirational joke logos. Perhaps the bags should be printed with closeup pictures of dead seabirds and huge text reading: “I am pillaging planet Earth of its most precious resources.”
In the UK, a 5p levy was introduced in 2015 to discourage shoppers from using plastic bags. The supermarkets are supposed to be donate that money to good causes that benefit the environment. Is that really happening?
Are retailers ‘bagging’ the 5p plastic carrier bag charge?
What we found when we dug into the plastic bag levy suggests it has been managed in a way that can confuse customers and leave them unaware of the levy’s purpose or their option to return used bags. If customers believe their 5p is going to good causes but discover it’s actually going into marketing spend for retailers, they may lose confidence in the scheme.
Meanwhile.
At the Newark Public Library, shopping bags carry local history
The Newark Public Library in Newark, New Jersey, has an unusual collection that can’t be found in its stacks. Stored in the library’s Special Collections department, in one filing cabinet and 61 archival Solander boxes—some of which are so full their latches barely close—are over 2,000 shopping bags. Meticulously cataloged by geographic location, size, and theme, the collection records the history of graphics, culture, and everyday life from the mid-20th century to the current day.
Miscellaneous Details 