Masthead

Can we do without plastic bags?

The New Straits Times in Malaysia opened a debate on the issue. Some interesting comments came up: “We can’t completely do without them. Only a really naive person would think so. It would be great if we could reduce 80 to 90 per cent of irresponsible usage”. — is the sensible suggestion from reader Gurmit Singh. He’s bang on. Ireland put a tax on them and usage dropped 90% in one year. “THERE’S no way we can live without plastic bags today” says Cindy Chin, “why” she asks “would I swap for something else, especially when plastic bags are given free everywhere?” That’s the problem. They’re perceived to be free. They’re not, of course. The retailer buys the bag at a low price, but the real cost is what happens after the bag is used and thrown away. Since we use one or two plastic bags at a time, we can’t see the staggering numbers that are thrown away and are becoming a blight on our world. They don’t biodegrade for hundreds of years so they pile up and pile up and choke either pant life or animal life. Thousands and thousands of innocent creatures are dying painful, premature deaths every day. But like most people, Cindy doesn’t see the consequences and she thinks they’re free. Reusable bags are the only answer. Even when they are made from water resistant plastic coated polyester. Because the number of times they are reused makes them far more environment friendly than the use-once-and-throw-away variety. At http://www.badlani.com/bags we offer a vast range of bags made from cotton, jute, polyester, and polypropylene. Reuse is what we say. Expecting people to perceive the whole problem and switch voluntarily appears to be naïve. A tax, like Ireland imposed, is the sensible answer.

Lessons from Harvard and Google

Harvard Business School has a wonderful resource for all businesses, large and small. Access is absolutely free. I strongly recommend reading it regularly. Lots of useful stuff there. Here's the link http://hbswk.hbs.edu/index.jhtml Read one article and it will make you think and grope in your mind for answers. But the next article may just answer those questions. Professor Gerald Zaltman has written a book called “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market”. That, as we all agree, is the holy grail. That’s where purchase decisions are made. The trick, says Professor Zaltman, is to look for relevant, basic emotions that have been overlooked by other brands in the category. Hmmm, you might think, as I did, what would be the relevant emotions my business could look for, stuff that my competition is overlooking? An article by Professor Mukti Khaire answers our question. She believes growth comes from by developing intangible social resources such as legitimacy, status, and reputation. Kind of answers the question, doesn’t it? Now what can you do that would confer these attributes to your business? I’ve always felt that Google answered this question best. Do stuff that benefits everybody; all your stakeholders which includes the community you do business in, be perceived as really good guys and keep it simple! Plastic bags are doing untold harm to our planet and your stakeholders are fast becoming more aware of this. Making available reusable fabric bags in any manner – whether you give them away as premiums, distribute them at trade shows and events or even sell them at cost –will get you the positive image attributes Prof Khaire talks about. Can you afford to do this? See how economical and attractive reusable cloth bags can be at http://www.badlani.com/bags Can a simple bag achieve this kind of impact? Ask yourself what you think of businesses that do a lot of common good even while promoting themselves. That will answer your question. So suppose you could afford just 1000 cotton bags, what visibility would that get you? Do the math. They get reused maybe 400 times each, and every time someone carries it around, it gets seen by a couple of hundred people. That’s 200 x 400 = 80,000 eyeballs. Per bag! Now multiply this by 1000. Great branding value, wouldn't you agree? Talk to us. We’ll work with you to plan an affordable and effective plan for your business.

Go ahead and tax plastic bags, say 55% of Japanese shoppers

An article in today’s Yomiuri Shimbun said 55% of Japanese shoppers want plastic bags to be taxed. They voted to support a government plan to reduce garbage by having supermarkets and other retailers charge customers for plastic bags, according to the results of a Cabinet Office survey. Only 22 percent disagreed with the plan, the office said. Talk about a mature society. Contrast this with California, where a majority appear to be against a tax, and India, where people flout the laws against plastic bags every day. One million plastic bags are being thrown away every minute of the day and night. This is endangering the lives of animals and marine creatures all over the world and putting an unbearable burden on our planet. No wonder the Japanese succeed at everything they do. The world has a lot to learn from them. Plastic bags offer a utility for just a few minutes and the cost of that convenience is way too high. Reusable cloth bags are the answer. See how economical and attractive they are at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Plastic bags are killing whales

I just read an article Rob Crilly and Emma Newlands wrote for The Herald in Scotland about a whale that was washed up on the Hebridean coast. Its stomach was filled with plastic bags.

More evidence that plastic bags are playing havoc with life as we know and love it. A recent survey found scraps of plastic inside 96% of seabirds tested. Marine creatures mistake plastic bags for food such as jellyfish or squid. Dr Dan Barlow, head of research at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "It's quite clear that plastic bags are a pollutant in their own right, and not only do they use a lot of resources in their production, but also because of the way they're disposed of. "The fact that a lot of marine life is being affected by plastic bags shows that we really need to levy some sort of plastic bag tax if we are to save resources and help the environment. The sooner this happens in Scotland the better." A plastic bag tax of about 15p introduced in Ireland in 2002 has cut their use by 90% and reduced litter. Research revealed at the weekend also suggested that many seabirds were being turned into living dustbins. The study by Dutch scientists of fulmars, gull-like seabirds which nest around Britain's coast, showed that 367 of 382 birds studied had ingested plastic waste. About a million birds and 100,000 mammals and turtles are estimated to become entangled in marine rubbish around the world each year. Surface-feeding species of bird, such as albatrosses, shearwaters, petrels and gulls, are the most susceptible to eating debris. An autopsy on a Minke whale in France in April 2002 found just under 1lb of plastics in its stomach, including two English supermarket plastic bags. A leatherback turtle washed ashore in Scotland in the 1990s showed that it appeared to have died from starvation caused by plastic and metal litter blocking its digestive tract. What makes this most tragic is how easily avoidable this is. All we need to do is to carry cloth bags with us when we go shopping (leave a few in the car, have a depository at all our local shops, there are many solutions). Most humans have no concept of the scale of this problem. Now that you’ve read this, I hope you will stop using plastic bags from this moment. If you’d like to take a little initiative to encourage your friends to also do so, write to me, I have a method to suggest.

Girls just wanna have fun

Scotland is fortunate to have media that have taken cognizance of the harm that plastic bags do to the environment. The Edinburgh Evening News has taken up this issue and launched a 6 week campaign through the city's major supermarkets to encourage more shoppers to buy stronger re-usable bags costing a few pence each. The campaign is being spearheaded by the environmental group Waste and Resource Action Programme, with Edinburgh chosen as one of two UK cities to pilot the scheme. If it is successful and enough shoppers are persuaded to switch it may be rolled out to other cities. A 10p tax on plastic bags is under discussion at the moment. Such a bag tax would raise an estimated £450,000 each year. Across the Irish Sea the "plastax" as it has become known has seen the demand for plastic bags fall by a staggering 90 per cent. The problem is gigantic. In the UK alone supermarkets give away 17.5 billion of them a year, with the average shopper taking home around seven each week. Six out of ten shoppers in Edinburgh arrive at supermarkets and shops expecting to be given free bags to ferry the shopping home. Most inevitably end up in the dustbin and ultimately find their way to a landfill site where this buried rubbish will take more than 100 years to decompose. Until the late 70’s no one gave away plastic bags - and everyone either managed with a paper bag or carried a tote. The world chugged along just fine and folks shopped as enthusiastically as they do today. The doomsday types claim folks will stop shopping if they aren’t given free plastic bags. Utter nonsense. Check with the folks in Ireland. Have they all closed up shop and gone home? Are you kidding? Plastic bags are just a habit. If they aren’t available, people will not even think of them. That babe who needs a new outfit for next Saturday is going to buy that outfit. You think she goes shopping because she gets a free shopping bag? Especially when she can carry her shopping home in a lovely reusable cloth bag; the type you’ll see at www.badlani.com/bags/

Pleasing our customers is what we live for

This morning my daughter Kaajal got a mail from a customer in Akron, Ohio, which said this “I am absolutely delighted! Please let us put a testimonial on your web site. You have been wonderful to work with, and the product is terrific. I'm still amazed that in this new world of ours we have managed to find our product in India and buy it with the same ease as driving to the nearest town. Thanks so much, Ellen” You made our day, Ellen. Thank you! This is what we live for – to please our customers. We’re proud that we make very good bags, but we’re even more proud that someone in Akron, Ohio finds it so easy to work with us. Please send us a picture of yourself with your bag, Ellen. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of Kaajal in her office which I took as she was inspecting a bag before it went to a customer. You’ll find a large variety of bags shown at our website http://www.badlani.com/bags Talk to us. We’ll do everything we can to make you feel the same way Ellen does.

American city councils ponder plastic waste problem

City councils everywhere today have to address the question of what to do with discarded plastic bags. Collecting them and transporting them to landfills is costing money. Lots of it. So much, in fact, that California calculated the cost at 17 cents per bag. So, they proposed a tax of 17 cents per plastic bag. There is much opposition because citizens feel the cost of shopping will go up. Perhaps councils could look at other examples of how some communities across the world have addressed this problem. Ireland imposed a tax and cut plastic bag usage by 90%. Clearly, popular or not, it works. Taiwan has cut plastic bag usage 80%. But some Australian communities have succeeded followed the voluntary route. The city of Coles Bay led the way with local bakery owner Ben Kearney pushing for a reusable bag that every citizen bought and used. Coles Bay just celebrated their 1st plastic free anniversary and they believe they’ve saved their community from using more than 350000 plastic bags. Ben won the Tasmanian of the Year award for his efforts. Fitzroy Falls is another Australian community that has proudly declared itself plastic bag free. They got local students to do designs and ordered bags that citizens bought through local retailers. Then, 13 city councils got together under the Northern Inland Regional Waste Group and invested in buying 86,000 reusable fabric bags to be given away free to all their citizens. Everyone is proudly using them and they’ve also become virtually plastic bag free. Granted, these are small communities where it is easier to get consensus. Most American city council managers will be surprised to hear that some US communities have also succeeded in ridding themselves of plastic bags. Galena, Alaska, a village of 850 also banned plastic bags. With a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the council handed out 2,000 free canvas bags and phased out plastics in the town's three stores. To date, nearly 40 other Alaskan villages have followed suit, said Bill Stokes of Palmer, Alaska, who helped formulate many of the bans with the state's Department of Environmental Conservation. Most Americans have the impression that reusable bags are expensive. They aren’t. Particularly when imported in bulk. At http://www.badlani.com/bags you will see more than a dozen alternatives that can be got at less than a dollar each.

Amitabh Bachan speaks out against paper bags

Amitabh Bachan, one of India’s most popular movie stars, hosts KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati), and it is watched by an audience of many millions. Yesterday evening I was thrilled to hear him start the show by asking folks to think about what happens to all the plastic bags they throw away. As a people we are notoriously unconcerned about civic issues (look how clean everyone’s homes are on the inside and see how they carelessly throw garbage right outside their own doors). But what the Big B says is considered gospel and I hope people paid attention to what he was saying. Thank you, Amitabh. We need lots and lots of influential people like you speaking up on the subject. The sad thing is that everyone appears to think that paper bags are the only alternative. They’re not and because they are used just once, they are also wasteful. Reusable cloth bags are a much better answer. See a vast array at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Jharkhand bans plastic bags. But only at some places.

The Indian state of Jharkhand announced a ban on the use of plastic bags within a two km radius of religious and tourist place. "Plastic bags are harming animals and are a problem at religious places. They have been banned under the Environment Law 1986," says the notification. Isn't that happening everywhere, not just at religious and tourist places? Why not ban them everywhere? But it’s a good move anyway. I admire our country for the number of good and progressive laws we have on our statute books. Now, if we could only learn to implement them. And I wish we could get rid of this preoccupation with religion. Specially the rituals. Clean water is a very scarce resource and getting scarcer by the day. Banning plastic bags is a good idea. But a lot of other things also need to be banned. Particularly at religious places; particularly near water bodies. The amount of junk that religious rituals generate is frightening. Water bodies are inundated with people immersing idols, foodstuff, flowers, incense, firewood, ashes, and so many other things. We’re such a crazy people. Well meaning, pious, but unthinking and blind.

The government of India needs to reconsider this insane rule.

Back in the 70s there used to be a joke based on some songs by Bob Dylan and other such topical balladeers. The punch line was the moment the US government discovered that marijuana caused cancer they’d legalize it. Governments and all large systems, including corporate systems, behave in completely irrational ways much of the time. The recent experience in Mumbai established beyond any doubt that plastic bags are huge burden for urban systems to cope with. California’s city government calculated that it costs them 17 cents to collect and dispose off a plastic bag, so they’ve mooted a tax of 17 cents on plastic bags. This in a place where people don’t just throw stuff all over the place. In India, we have no rules on how we organize our garbage and we believe that freedom means the right to litter. But instead of taxing these ghastly things, their manufacturers have been specially exempted from taxes if they use “recycled” plastic. The government of India needs to reconsider this insane rule. Ask yourself where recycled plastic comes from. What it’s come in contact with in the past; and you will realize that using a recycled plastic bag means putting your skin in contact with an unknown set of noxious poisons, and if you carry food in them, eating the residues of an extremely risky set of things. Makes no sense. We live in a country that grows cotton and jute in abundance. Get yourself a nice stylish reusable cotton or jute bag for heavens sake. It’s your family’s health you’re talking about. See http://www.badlani.com/bags to see what attractive choices you have. Say no to poisonous plastic. In fact say no to all plastic bags.

Biodegradable plastic bags for real

These words have been bandied about so much that recyclable, ecofriendly, biodegradable and other such reassuring terms have lost meaning. I earlier wrote a blog about one of the worst instances of this obfuscation. http://badlani.com/blog/weblog.php?id=30 . The Indian Express, a hugely influential newspaper with a massive circulation published a story that actually said ““NO NEED to kick this plastic habit” They were talking about a technique developed at ATIRA to make plastic bags photodegradable. Which means it would break down with exposure to light and become a fine powder that would mix with the soil and invisibly poison all of us. I wrote to the Indian Express and called the scientist. No reply. When scientists and major newspapers make such irresponsible statements pronouncing a noxious and dangerous substance safe just because it can’t be seen, you see what I mean. But today I read about what appears to be a genuine biodegradable plastic bag being made in Vasai by a guy called Perses Bilimoria, who’s making plastics from starch and cottonseeds, according to an article in Cybernoon. I’m going to write to Perses today and try and see if we can find a way to work together to reduce the amount of plastic we pile up on our heads every day like lemmings. Meanwhile, our fabric bags continue to be one way to avoid poisoning the earth. See them at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Maharashtra bans plastic bags

Great! They learned something from the recent flooding. It’s creditable to see a government in our country move this quickly. But the lobbying has started and follows the usual route. Short sighted reps of the plastics industry have started making noises that more than 1,00,000 workers will lose their jobs. Utter tripe of course, but our governments have a habit of rolling back many of their decisions when these kinds of pressures are brought to bear on them. Our overly moralistic politicians had no problem with (so they claim) 1,00,000 bar girls losing their jobs when they closed down dance bars so I hope they will hold firm on the plastic bags issue. But the ban on bar girls has more potential for creating an income for the enforcement system (like prohibition in Gujarat) so that ban will stay so that generous bribes are collected when folks are caught breaking the law. But the ban on plastic bags doesn’t have that much potential for fun. So, even if they don’t roll the law back, I’m afraid the ban is difficult to enforce in a country where law enforcement hardly exists. We already have laws banning the use and manufacture of thin gauge plastic bags, but they continue to be made and used with impunity and continue to choke drainage systems and be eaten by unsuspecting animals and marine life. One look at the chaos on our roads and the government’s inability to enforce laws becomes clearly visible. We export cloth bags to environmentally concerned customers all over the world from http://www.badlani.com/bags but hardly every get any customers in India. Sad, isn’t it?

Good corporate citizen image at such a low cost?

Sponsorship from Landmark Narromine, a real estate company is helping the Narromine Shire Council rid their community of plastic bags. Narromine Shire Council is encouraging all residents to take advantage of the current 'Plastic Bag Swap Op' where calico bags are given free to residents when they bring in 20 plastic bags to the Narromine Council Chambers, Tomingley BP or the Trangie Library. "There have been more than 16,000 bags bought in since the swap program started, which is a great result," Miss Cartwright said. You know what that means in terms of sponsorship money? 16000 divided by 20 is 800 cotton bags. That would (or ought to) have cost them maybe $ 2 each. Look at the image payoff. The sponsor looks like a very responsible corporate citizen and deservedly earns goodwill and trust. Earning the gratitude of any entire city and all the attendant publicity that comes with it for under $ 2000? Ever heard of such a thing? Those 800 bags will be taken out for shopping trips maybe 300 times each. That’s 2,40,000 eyeballs for such a small cost. Much better bang for your corporate buck than sponsoring something gimmicky, wouldn’t you say? Write to us today and we’ll work out a cost-effective program for your company. See the attractive and economical bags at http://www.badlani.com/bags

How sacred are Indian cows?

A story in today’s Indian Express talks about how 95 per cent of urban India’s stray cattle are suffering from various ailments due to hazardous materials inside their abdomen. 90 per cent of that was plastic bags. This, while a website about Hinduism says “The cow has almost become a symbol of Hinduism…in India, the cow is believed to be a symbol of the earth - because it gives so much yet asks nothing in return. Because of its great economic importance, it makes good sense to protect the cow” In theory, of course. We’re a country of very high minded and noble intentions. Our actions completely contradict all that. We sell reusable cloth bags every day of the week to customers all over the world from http://www.badlani.com/bags , but we have no customers in India. Tragic, isn’t it?

Turning junk into beauty while helping people

Used plastic bags can do immense harm if allowed to choke landfill or left free to be eaten by innocent animals and marine life. But they can be used for good if used as a raw material. That’s what we decided to do. I spoke to my designer friends Prakash Vani and Himadri Ghosh and that is what we’ve been trying to do. This little picture shows you the junk we started with, the very basic looms we worked with and some of the beautiful bags and textures we could create. Feels really good to be able to take something awful and turn it into something so delightful. Read the whole story at http://www.badlani.com/recycle I realize that this is a modest achievement, but it is meaningful to us and I imagine even more so to the folks who can benefit from it. But I also see that it has immense potential for good. I'd love your input on how we can take this forward from here. Please take a moment to share your thoughts with me. Ideally, I'd like to identify people and agencies who can assist in the process of bringing to market the products that emerge from this exercise. All thoughts will be more than welcome. And if there is anything you can bring to the table, we'd love to work with you. Whoever you are, wherever you are. Write to me at rajiv at badlani.com

Cradle to cradle design

http://www.mbdc.com has a totally inspiring concept on their website. This is what it says. "MBDC is articulating and putting into practice a new design paradigm; what Time calls "a unified philosophy that—in demonstrable and practical ways—is changing the design of the world." Instead of designing cradle-to-grave products, dumped in landfills at the end of their 'life,' MBDC transforms industry by creating products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops. Maintaining materials in closed loops maximizes material value without damaging ecosystems”. We’re doing our modest bit on this front too. Scroll down to see the weblog titled “Turning junk into beauty while helping people” where we’ve attempted to precisely this. What we’re doing, of course, is going to the grave and turning it into a cradle. The whole story is at http://www.badlani.com/recycle

Are men dumber, or just less secure?

Clean Up Australia says men are the weaker sex when it comes to saying "no" to plastic bags. A national Newspoll conducted by the environmental organisation shows 50 per cent of women are likely to refuse a plastic bag, but just one-in-three men say 'no'. A third of men surveyed say they prefer to use plastic bags over reusable bags, compared to just one-in-five women. Everyone’s been telling me this for years. That we’re the dumber sex. But could it be that we are just more insecure? No woman’s feminine identity is threatened by being seen carrying a cloth bag for her groceries. Are men concerned that they’d look like wimps carrying a cloth bag? Most cloth shopping bags are designed to look like the kind of totes women carry. A corporate client (a male) who regularly orders giveaway bags for the trade shows he attends on behalf of his company gave me some insight into this. Most totes, he mentioned, look too feminine, and male visitors to trade shows feel awkward carrying them. We worked with him to design a jute + cotton tote with longer handles that men could sling over their shoulders without getting this feeling. He wrote in after the show telling us that the design was a big hit, and preferred by everyone (males particularly, but women included) to the bags other exhibitors were handing out. It was particularly gratifying, he added, that most folks catching flights out after the show, had his bags slung over their shoulders at the airport also. At Norquest, we work hard to find the most appropriate solution to our clients’ needs and enjoy putting in the effort to customize solutions for their needs. See the vast selection we have on show at http://badlani.com/bags and if you don’t see something that appeals, brief us and we’ll work towards creating a bag for your specific needs. Sensitivity to such issues can go a long way in encouraging everyone to reduce plastic bag usage. Younger people would prefer backpacks. We have a great line of very economical backpacks too. Who said all shopping bags need to be cut from the same cloth?

The polluter needs to pay

The Australians are leading the world in a voluntary switch away from plastic bags, but the results are clearly not enough. According to figures from this year's Clean Up Australia campaign, retail sectors other than supermarkets have only reduced their plastic bag use by between 10 and 15 per cent over the past couple of years, and the number of plastic bags in the litter stream is rising rather than falling. Figures showed that while major supermarkets had achieved a near 27 per cent reduction in the number of plastic bags issued in the past year, other stores had been slow to follow. IBISWorld general manager Jason Baker said the problem was that in many cases the significant costs involved outweighed the benefits for the companies, despite what might be best for the environment as a whole. "Until companies, and therefore consumers, are forced to pay the 'full cost' of producing polluting energy or other products - including paying for the cleaning up and avoidance of air and water pollution, or recycling and disposal services - they won't be encouraged to develop 'clean' alternatives, such as wind power or effluent-free farms," Mr Baker said. In contrast consumption of plastic bags in Ireland dropped 90% within a year of imposing a 12 cent tax on plastic bags. The problem is very serious and taxation appears to be the most productive way to go.

India: Great laws, poor enforcement

Our laws are some of the most progressive in the world, but enforcement is zilch. We have strict laws against production, storage, use, sale and distribution of polythene bags. Himachal Pradesh, a state that earns much of its revenues because of its scenic beauty, was the first to implement it. In theory.In theory you can be fined upto a lakh of Rupees (US$ 2000) or be sent to jail for upto 7 years. In practice, no one has ever paid that fine leave alone spend time in the cooler. Most Indian citizens are completely unaware of the law and you see plastic bags flying around everywhere. The Indian cow, considered sacred and an object of worship, is one of the worst victims. 95 per cent of urban India’s stray cattle are suffering from various ailments due to hazardous materials inside their abdomen. 90 per cent are plastic bags. We ship reusable cotton bags every day of the week to the whole world from our website http://www.badlani.com/bags but we have no buyers in India.

Kids have bags of great ideas on how to send plastic packing

A class of 11- and 12-year-olds in Australia is leading a push to make the Royal National Park towns free of plastic bags, the first time a school has instigated such a ban. The Bundeena Public School year 6 campaign - "No plastic packing for Port Hacking" - started with an environmental education project. The snorkelling students were disgusted at the number of plastic bags they found floating in the waterway. The 28 students followed this with a litter survey, letterboxed homes and yesterday called a public meeting to build support for a possible phase-out of bags by September 1. The students are challenging other schools in the Sutherland Shire to follow suit. Nationally, about eight towns and suburbs have ditched plastic bags altogether and many others are planning to do so. Charlotte Bawden, 12, said: "It's the whale season right now and some whales have been found with plastic bags in their stomachs. It's hurting the animals. The turtles think the plastic bags are jellyfish and they eat them." Bundeena and nearby Maianbar are surrounded by national park, Port Hacking and the Pacific Ocean. Hayden McLaggan, 11, said the students were keen whale watchers - they saw five humpbacks yesterday morning - and wanted to protect the mammals from man-made threats such as plastic bags. Planet Ark project manager Doug McLean said: "This is the first town where the children have led the way." The National Parks and Wildlife Service has just banned plastic bags and brought in $200 fines at a rock-fishing site at Wattamolla in the national park. Bundeena and Maianbar, with a dozen shops and a combined population of 3000, are similar in size to the Tasmanian tourist town of Coles Bay, which was the first town to ban plastic bags. Some Bundeena cafes have already stopped supplying plastic bags. The owner of The Fish Exchange, Bruni Ullrich, sells calico bags for $1.10. "People love it after it sinks in," she said. Warren Mason, a partner in the largest retailer, IGA Bundeena, said it was a "wonderful idea in theory" but would require a re-education program for consumers to change old habits. "There are people who buy a two-litre bottle of milk, which has a handle, and they still want it put in a plastic bag," he said. It’s a sad thing that most smaller Australian stores don’t know how affordable reusable cloth bags can be. I hope some of them check out our prices at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Talk to kids. They have the magic!

That’s how I got into the business of reusable cloth bags. My daughter Kaajal came home from school one day and banished them from our home. Little girls know they have that magic. They can make wonders happen. They can banish things. And it works. This not-so-little girl-now helps me build and maintain this website and market reusable bags all over the world. She still has the passion and the conviction! To effectively rid your community of this ghastly substance, engage the kids in your community. If they decide that plastic is harmful, they will have a bigger influence on their parents than any amount of sloganeering and advertising can do. Would it be difficult to convince kids of this? No. Kids are more open-minded than grown ups are. Treat them with respect, give them the facts, and watch them achieve what governments and activists have not been able to achieve. Read the stories on this weblog. There are enough facts and anecdotes to build a lesson plan from. If this isn’t enough, write to me and I will either find you what’s missing or do whatever you need to deliver the message. Actually, encourage the kids in your class to read the blog themselves to extract what they consider relevant to their lives. Then, encourage them to start their own weblog where they tell stories of how their efforts are working out in your community. Tell your local media about the blog the kids are writing. I’m sure they will find it interesting. You’ll be amazed at what this can achieve.

Aberdeen considers reusable bags

Reusable cotton shopping bags are to be distributed free to shoppers on a trial basis to encourage people to reduce the number of plastic bags they use, under the the 'Fantastic it's not plastic!' initiative. Cotton shopping bags will be handed out at the shopping precinct on North Deeside Road during the promotion and local children at Culter school are also being encouraged to participate in the initiative. Amy Gray, Aberdeen City Council's Business Waste Minimisation Officer says, "Aberdeen City Council is encouraging residents to become more waste aware. Refusing plastic bags at checkouts is a simple step anyone can take to reduce the amount of waste they produce. Aberdeen City Council is also lobbying for the introduction of a tax on plastic bags in line with other forms of packaging." The UK now produces and uses 20 times more plastic than it did 50 years ago. Around 10 billion plastic bags are handed out by supermarkets and other retailers in the UK every year. Scots alone take more than 18.5 million plastic bags home from shopping trips each week, according to research by the UK's largest home improvement retailer B&Q. Every year Scotland uses approximately 1 billion plastic bags, this equates to 200 plastic bags for every man, woman and child in Scotland. If national averages are applied to Aberdeen then local residents are sending some 1000 tonnes of plastic bags to landfill each year. The average household is estimated to have 40 plastic bags stuffed in cupboards or drawers. Ireland introduced a levy on plastic bags in March 2002 under the Waste Management Act 1996, reducing usage by 90%. Plastic bags are a major cause of unsightly litter and they also harm wildlife. The amount of petroleum used to make one plastic bag would drive a car about 115 metres. Plastic bags that end up at sea are easily swallowed by marine life that mistake them for food. An estimated 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine life die every year after swallowing plastic bags. In many council areas, plastic bags are the single main contaminant of kerbside recycling. In a report by Audit Scotland it is envisaged that waste is estimated to grow by 7% per annum, compared to a 3% predicted within the National Waste Strategy. The UK's appetite for free plastic bags shows no sign of diminishing despite many voluntary schemes such as bags for life, boxes or recycling of plastic bags. That’s the bad news. The good news is that awareness of the problem is increasing by leaps and bounds and is opening up the market for ecologically responsible products. An aggressive campaign positioning reusable bag users as being trendier and more glamorous and plastic bags users as being Neanderthals can achieve faster change. There’s a huge branding opportunity inherent in this. Patagonia and Body Shop are two very successful brands that have positioned themselves as being the smarter choice for their ecological concerns are a case in point. If you’d like to give your brand that kind of panache, choose from the attractive and economical options at http://www.badlani.com/bags Your logo on one of our reusable bags will position you as a responsible, forward thinking brand.

Plastic bag junk causes Mumbai city to lose billions of dollars

Yesterday Mumbai city was inundated by floods. The megacity, India’s business hub was paralyzed. The cost: Billions of dollars and a miserable day for residents who couldn’t make it to hospitals, schools and places of work. Most flights were either cancelled or diverted to Ahmedabad, and trains were cancelled or ran hours late. Mumbai has an intense monsoon. You can expect incessant downpours at least 4 times every year. The downpours aren’t new. They’ve been coming to India’s west coast for hundreds of years. But the intensity of flooding is new and getting worse every year. One of the major culprits is the increasing number of plastic bags that are choking drainage systems. India actually has laws banning the use of such plastic bags, but like most laws in India, they exist only on the books. No one knows about them, no one follows them, and no one appears to care. Ironically, India is a major exporter of reusable cloth bags. We ship reusable cloth bags http://www.badlani.com/bags every day of the week to other countries as they take effective steps to reduce plastic bag usage, but we don’t have any customers in India. This weblog is being acknowledged by readers around the world as a good source of information on the problems caused by plastic bags and the solutions communities have found, but again, hardly anyone in India reads it. Help! All concerned, thinking people, please help get our people and governments more sensitive to this problem. Talk to me, we'll try and figure out ways to do this together.

There’s hope for Ahmedabad yet!

This morning a nice young lady came by to discuss what she’d read on my blogs, to talk about how she and the organisation she works with – The Center for Environment Education – could get Ahmedabad conscious of the harm plastic bags are doing. I was thrilled. I’d given up on my own home town (shame on me!) and she reminded me that there’s no need to. That thinking and concerned folks do exist right here. I blame myself for not having thought of the people and resources that Ahmedabad has. The CEE in itself represents an immediate and potent force for change. Thank you, Vinutha, for stopping by. I enjoyed discussing the issue with her and I’m sure we can put some of the fun stuff we discussed into action soon. She’s asked me to put together an article on how ecological action can become relevant to businesses here and I’m going to have a blog up on that in a couple of days. Watch, as they say, this space!

The rise and fall of a brand

What do you need to create a successful brand? A huge advertising budget? It helps, of course, to have oodles of money to back up your story, but I don’t think it’s the key ingredient at all. If you’ve got enough passion, advertising budgets don’t matter. If you’re in love with your consumer and your product, a kind of magic happens that allows you to achieve big things with small bucks. If this sounds like wishful thinking, here’s my own story. In 1980 I launched a brand of jeans called Flying Machine literally on a shoestring budget. Its initial launch was done by kids who fell in love with the jeans and sold them to one another. They created such a rush on them that we couldn’t keep up with the demand! Then, to enter the Mumbai market, I released one ad in the Times of India (yes, just one) and used one major billboard (which I negotiated at a bargain rate over a drink with the owner one evening because it was the monsoon season). O&M made such a phenomenal ad for me that it was talked about for years after that. The credit goes to Ranjan Kapur and Elsie Nanji. It had a sassy headline “Who needs phoren?”

Bags or decks, natural products are best

The San Francisco Chronicle had a story today comparing wooden decks with composite decks made from recycled plastic waste. Bottom line, they say, go with wood, because composites also have a limited life span and are eventually not biodegradable. So finally they will contribute to the environmental burden our planet has to bear. But the fact that companies like Trex, TimberTech, Louisiana Pacific, Epoch and CorrectDeck are finding uses for plastic waste is wonderful. We’re also doing what we can as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/recycle If you, like many thinking people nowadays, are concerned about the environmental impact of your actions, please stick to using cotton bags. We offer polypropylene and polyester options also, as they are reusable, not used-once-and-thrown-away like plastic bags, but our cotton and jute bags are best, because they will go, as nature intended, from dust-to-dust. See the options at http://www.badlani.com/bags

The world is going crazy, but there’s hope…

Doug Gordan wrote about how he bought some gum and the store clerk put his tiny purchase into a paper bag and then put the paper bag into a plastic bag. As he left the store, he took the pack out of the bag and threw the bag out in a corner trash can, giving the bag a total out-of-store lifespan of about two minutes. Considering, he says, that so many New Yorkers are rarely without messenger bags, backpacks, or Louis Vuitton knock-offs, most have little use for plastic bags for the few items they might purchase during our daily routines. If you want to rock the world of just about any convenience store employee, tell them that you don't need a bag to hold your purchase. Doug often pre-emptively does this. In return, he says, he’s greeted with looks that most people reserve for the insane and/or Tom Cruise. Its become a habit, over-packaging everything. It’s a habit that is costing the world dearly. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade and will stick around and blight our world for centuries to come. And as they fly around they will be eaten by innocent animals and marine life who will die painful deaths because their digestive systems get choked. Reusable bags are the answer. Preferably cotton or jute bags. Completely biodegradable and far more stylish and amazingly affordable (see how affordable at http://www.badlani.com/bags ) What’s fascinating about Doug’s article is the number of comments its generated. I’m going to write a blog about those comments soon. The really good news is that they all support a pastic bag tax.

This isn’t my opinion, look at the results

Helen Logan reports in the Evening Gazette that Ireland used 1.2 billion plastic bags before 2002, when a 15 cent tax was imposed on their usage. Did it hurt business? Was the Irish government overthrown by distraught shoppers? Not really. What actually happened was that plastic bag usage fell by more than a billion bags within 5 months, and earned £2.25m for the Dublin exchequer to be spent on environmental protection projects. “Many of us pick up and fill loads of plastic carriers when doing the weekly supermarket shop, without a second thought” says Helen, “imposing such a tax seems an easy way of cutting down on this type of consumption. People can either bring their own bags or at least be encouraged to re-use the plastic ones if they have had to pay for them”. Common sense isn’t it? The harm that these innocuous looking little plastic bags do cannot easily be visualized by everyone. If a 15 cent tax can bring the issue home, I’m all for it!

Plastax is a brilliant idea says Shane from Ireland

Shane Doyle from Ireland wrote in about my blog on Ireland’s plastic bags. Here’s what he said: "I'm from Ireland myself and the whole plastic bag tax has been a roaring success. You have to ask for a bag now if you want one, the days of automatically being handed a bag are long gone. And it really works, people can be seen going to the shops with their own "green bags", as they are called, or even just re-using the same plastic bag again and again. You rarely see a plastic bag being blown down the street in the wind anymore! I must say, it was a brilliant idea!" Thanks, Shane, for sharing that. I agree that it is a very bright idea. If you’re sick of seeing plastic bags destroy your environment, ask your elected representative to read this blog.

Promotions? Bags make the most sense

I just read an article by Cindy Carrera where she explains the basics of how organizations can use imprinted promotional articles to their advantage. She categorizes their uses into Advertising Specialties, Business Gifts, Premiums, and Recognition Awards. “The trick to a good promotion is to attach your company details to something useful. Now, there is "private useful" like the promotional toothbrush you use in the privacy of your own bathroom, and there is "public useful" that you use out there where everyone sees you inadvertently parading the promotion. This is where promotional bags come in. Few of us can get people to wear sandwich boards for us without paying them, but easily collocated promotional bags act in much the same way” she says. “Imagine” she adds “the happy recipient of your promotional gift arriving at a jazz concert in the park toting your promotional bag. There it sits on the blanket, sophisticated, serene and discreetly advertising your sophisticated and serene company. What a pleasure.” Indeed. We’ve found that our bags get reused more than 300 times. Choose a relevant bag, she suggests. She’s right. There’s a huge variety to choose from, and most are more affordable than you might think. See the variety at http://www.badlani.com/bags I'm sure we have something suited for your next promotion. And if we don't, we'll design a special solution for you.

What possible harm can one little plastic bag do?

Not much, you’d think, right? Until you realise that the world's plastic bag consumption rate is estimated to be well over 500 billion plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute. One million plastic bags minute being added to the burden that our Earth must bear. One million plastic bags a minute being added to a horde that will not biodegrade for the next 3000 years. That’s a lot of harm. If this doesn’t depress you enough, read the full article from the Sun Star Pampanga in the Philippines. The saddest thing is we do have a choice. A simple and elegant choice: calico bags. See how affordable and practical they are at www.badlani.com/bags