Rhode Island realises plastic bags disposal cost

Daniel H. Trafford is the managing editor of the Kent County Daily Times and he’s written a article on a $250,000 advertising campaign to be launched to combat the problem of plastic bags blowing in the wind. It seems that their community spends about $1 million annually just picking up these bags that blow all over the place from trash being delivered to the Central Landfill. It’s nice that they’re catching on. It would be even nicer if they followed the lead of places like Coles Bay in Australia. He’s also mentioned how he, as a kid working in a store, encountered how some people make a hoax of recycling. He’s one of the few that had the guts to object and it appears that his action led others to object too. Click on more to read the full article. I just wrote Daniel a mail hoping he will ask his community to look at the attractive options that exist at www.badlani.com/bags/

Plastic bags are killing marine life. Colliers County catches on.

I just read a story by Eric Staats in the Naples Daily News about how the Colliers County tourism promotion guys had to give up their plans to give away plastic bags to tourists for shell collection when the county environment experts intervened. Nancy Payton, field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation praised the decision to pull the bags off the beach. Like most folks in the US they appear not to be aware that for just a little more than the plastic bags were costing them, they could have imported re-usable fabric bags from us. Attractive totes like the one you see in the picture, which would have been carried home by tourists, who would have become walking billboards for the Colliers County tourism message every time they re-used the bags. I’m sure if they’d known how attractive and economical our bags are; see them at http://www.badlani.com/bags ; they’d have opted for them. I’m just sending a mail to Eric Staats hoping he will pass on the message.

How to save a billion plastic bags from choking our planet

This little polypropylene bag is an absolute wonder. It has cut plastic bag usage in Australia by 1.18 billion plastic bags. That’s a lot of bags. The Australian carried an article about this in their issue of March 12th. Trends, says futurist John Naisbitt, are like horses, easier to ride in the direction they are going. Catch a trend early and you can use it to your advantage. And ecological concerns, especially about the harm plastic bags are doing to our environment, is one that is going is going to get a huge amount of public attention, particularly in the US. Considering we can deliver these to you at less than 75 cents, our #B06 bag is a great vehicle for you to use as a brand building device for your company. See these and some other great promotional items at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

See what plastic bags do to your countryside

Kathryn B. Brown, a family health nursing professional, points out in the East Oregonian that using plastic bags and drinking bottled water isn’t good for people. “All this unnecessary plastic in our world is unhealthy for people and the environment” she says, contrasting her own environment with what she observed in countries that are taxing plastic bags, “the difference was the lack of plastic trash” Those countries don't see this kind of sight any longer. I'm sure Kathryn would approve of the attractive and economical shopping bags we offer at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Welsh take note of Ireland’s plastic bag tax’s success

A story in the Daily Post reported The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is renewing its demands for government action after an increase in plastic-based litter on beaches in Wales during its annual Beachwatch survey. Andrea Crump, MCS's litter projects co-ordinator, said a tax on plastic bags in Ireland reduced waste by 90%. "Plastics such as nets and bags are known to entangle marine animals, which can drown as a result, she added, "bags and small plastic pieces can also be swallowed by marine animals, such as turtles and whales, which may then starve as a result." People easily adjust to doing without throw-away plastic bags. Reusable fabric bags are attractive and economical options. See how attractive and economical at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Reusable bags WILL catch on!

Martin Sloan, writing in The Birmingham News, has just written a great piece “Reusable Bags could catch on”. One look at this picture and you can see why they have to catch on! He quotes folks who have appreciated the need to use reusable fabric bags instead of choking our world with plastic bags. More power to you, Martin. Folks like you will save our planet, despite the myopia that most of the world still demonstrates. See how attractive and economical reusable fabric bags can be at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Pretty up a tote bag and win yourself a prize!

Martin Sloane of The Birmingham News got a tremendous response to his article on switching to reusable bags. So great, that he’s decided to kick off a contest. To enter you have to decorate a reusable bag (no paper or plastic, folks) and send clear picture of it to Martin at the Birmingham News or email it to him at site4savings@hotmail.com The winner gets $ 100, the second prize is $ 50 and third prize is $ 25. Kids are encouraged to enter, and the winning photos get featured at Martin’s website http://www.martinsloane.com/ Great going Martin! Keep this up and you’re going to do a lot of good to our planet! Reusable fabric bags are a practical and simple solution to a problem of mounting proportions. They are attractive and affordable as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/bags This is Chloe, a talented graphic designer who ordered bags from us with one of her beautiful designs. Makes us proud to be associated with folks like her.

What’s a cotton tote got to do with branding?

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore discussed the power of transforming ordinary transactions into experiential events in their book, “The Experience Economy.” “It’s not about entertaining customers, it’s about engaging them,” they wrote. Kevin Roberts, CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi, recently built on Pine and Gilmore’s theory of customer engagement in “Lovemarks, The Future Beyond Brands,” his new book. Successful direct marketers are in the experience business; they court their customers in intriguing ways, fueling their passion for meaningful experiences. It’s more than a win-win. It’s a way of life for these companies and their customers. In an earlier story on this blog, I wrote about how Patagonia and Body Shop are two mega brands that have internalized people’s ecological concerns into their strategy and have won a huge and loyal following. These two brands can comfortably call themselves Lovemarks. Their customers feel good about selecting their products over others, trusting these brands to have followed the most ethical and ecological route to making the products they proudly use and associate themselves with. Giving away a cotton shopping tote with your logo on it shows people that you are aware of the problems being caused by plastic bags and are doing something positive about it. When they re-use these bags, they do so proudly, displaying your brand’s and their own concerns. What a testimonial, and at such a small price! If you don’t know how economical it can be for you to give away cotton shopping totes, give yourself a pleasant surprise at http://www.badlani.com/bags/

Washington DC shops to charge 31 cents for plastic bags

I just read an article in The Decatur Daily which is published in Alabama, where Vickie Brooks, front-end manager for a store called Kroger says that stores in Washington, DC are charging customers 31 cents per plastic bag. This came as news to me. Searching for this only led back to this one story. I hope this is true. Reusable cloth bags will begin to look truly viable to shoppers in DC and clean up that city’s environment in no time. A 12 cent tax reduced plastic bag usage by 95% in Ireland. Clearly taxation works. Vickie herself has used cloth bags for years when she buys groceries because she sees how many plastic bags the store uses daily. The Wall Street Journal says the United States consumes 100 billion plastic bags annually, requiring about 12 million barrels of oil to produce. And plastic bags, which look like food to marine animals, cause more than 100,000 marine animal deaths per year. Plastic bags are not biodegradable, but rather, photodegradable. They break down in sunlight into smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways. This affects us very directly. A shocking statistic says all adult Americans now urinate plastics. Brooks said it might not be long before every community will follow a growing trend in larger cities that charge customers for plastic bags. Most Americans assume reusable cloth bags are expensive. Visitors to http://www.badlani.com/bags are pleasantly surprised to discover how inexpensive they are.

Internal Branding

Too many discussions on branding focus on projecting a brand to external audiences. To the extent that branding gets considered as being synonymous with advertising. I disagree. I think the place a branding exercise starts from is within the organisation. It is only when an organisation is in total internal agreement on the subject of “who we are and how we behave” that it is actually equipped to deliver a consistent branding message to the external world. One of the most effective ways to make this happen is to conduct role-playing exercises on how the folks within the organisation would like to be treated by the suppliers they do business with. At some level each one of us a buyer of goods and services, and we have no difficulty in differentiating between who gives us great service and who doesn’t. Human beings have a wonderful characteristic. We all know what we like and what we don’t. Stands to reason that if an experience doesn’t appeal to us, it wouldn’t appeal to our customers either. It isn’t difficult, then, to take this into a discussion of where we could improve our service standards. This is a simple exercise, doesn’t cost anything at all, and helps bind the organisation into one that is on the same wave-length where service and quality are concerned. It works. Try us out for your next requirement of bags and see how we measure up. If we don’t exceed your highest expectations, please tell us so. We’ll listen and we’ll learn every time. And you’ll have an even more pleasing supplier. A look at www.badlani.com/bags/customers.htm will tell you that our efforts have met with some success, but we believe we have a lot more to achieve. To all the customers who’ve said kind things to us. Thank you. Your appreciation matters a lot to us; it helps to keep us striving. But, please don’t pull your punches. If we do anything at all that doesn’t please you, please tell us! We also use this to learn how to deal with the folks who we buy from. We don’t like being treated in some ways, and those guys are every bit as human as we are.

US businesses bought $ 16.9 billion worth of promo products in 2004

2005 looks even better, suggests an ASIC survey. ASIC stands for the Advertising Specialty Institute. “Companies are looking for new, more effective ways to spend their marketing budgets, as many are discovering that advertising on satellite radio, TiVo television or the Internet is not as effective as it once was” says Greg Muzzillo, founder and Co-CEO of Proforma, said to be one of the top 10 promo product distributors. I’m convinced this is part of a worldwide trend that is leading away from broadcasting marketing messages through mass media to customized messages being narrowcasted to specific customers. The customization potential of promotional products makes them especially appealing as does their topicality and association with events. The Promotional Products Association published an article in December 2004 saying bags are a wonderful promo choice. Why? Because everybody uses them. Since everyone has stuff to hold, there’s not one person who doesn’t have a bag of some sort. Promotionally speaking, there’s an inherent use value for the recipient, and this means, for the advertiser, there’s the frequent opportunity for seeing the company logo. They are an extension of the person, and different styles may fit one person but not another. I completely agree. In today’s world one-size-fits-all just doesn’t cut it. That’s why, at Norquest, we encourage our customers to customize what they are ordering. No fixed notions, no minimums, we don’t put any limits on our customers’ imaginations. It’s our job to make whatever they dream up and we enjoy it. Bags work. Everyone loves receiving an attractive bag. And we’ve got plenty. See the variety at http://www.badlani.com/bags You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how economically they are priced. Good looking, economical, and something that everybody wants. Isn’t that how you’d like your next promotion to be?

Indian army stores take ecological lead

Plastic bags are affecting the environment in India more than in most countries because of our complete lack of discipline and enforcement. People throw plastic bags everywhere. Though we have legislation in place banning the manufacture and use of thin-gauge plastic bags, these laws exist only on paper, are flouted every day, and plastic bags continue to be thrown away everywhere. You see them everywhere. The streets are littered with plastic waste and animals continue to ingest them, mistaking them for food. The Indian cow, considered sacred by the Hindu religion, is one of the greatest sufferers. Cows on Indian streets now have the trademark bloated stomach that is a result of their digestive systems being choked with indigestible plastic bags. To me it seems that our government has given up on law enforcement, particularly on seemingly small issues (we have bigger problems! Always!). Awareness of the immense harm these innocuous looking things do is very, very low. The CSD (Canteen Stores Department), the establishment that runs specially subsidized consumer stores for all armed forces personnel has quietly started enforcing this ban in a simple and effective manner. They don’t give away plastic bags. End of story. Either you bring your own cloth bag or you do without. A couple of trips home lugging things without a bag to carry them in and you will not forget to carry your own bag. Army cantonments are already much cleaner than Indian towns and cities. Now they will be even cleaner. Well done, chaps! I’m proud of you

Plastic bags kill 10,000 Mediterranean fish each day!

Online Greek publication ekathimerini.com today published this shocking fact. “There will have to be a change in the law forcing supermarkets to charge for shopping bags so that their excessive use, which is detrimental to the environment, can stop,” said Apostolos Alexakis, president of the Association of Greek Supermarkets. An average store serves about 800 customers a day, each uses four plastic bags on average. Each supermarket gives away roughly 3,200 bags a day and with some 2,500 stores nationwide, this leads to 8 million plastic bags being used daily by customers. As a result, some 60,000 tons of plastic bags, which are not biodegradable, end up in landfill sites around Greece each year, according to recycling experts. And they get into the seas, and kill more than 10,000 fish a day. Every day! Alexakis said that if customers are charged for their shopping bags, this number could be halved. He added that the move could also lead to cheaper products since the 2 cents or so that each bag costs are incorporated into the price of items on the supermarket shelves. Supermarket owners are willing to consider charging for plastic shopping bags and encouraging customers to bring their own, and would be interested in adopting a system similar to that used in other European countries, such as Ireland, whereby customers bring cloth bags from home for their shopping, or are charged for each plastic bag they use. Greece is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I’m so glad they are taking the problem seriously. They also, like most Europeans, probably assume that reusable cloth bags are expensive. A visit to http://www.badlani.com/bags would give them a pleasant surprise.

Banning of plastic bags is not possible says Indian Environment Minister

I believe our Minister of State for Environment and Forest Namo Naryan Meena said in parliament that ''it is not possible to ban their use''. Worse, I’m told he actually said that plastic bags were ''not harmful to life”. Finding that the Minister was not equipped with details on the matter, the Speaker skipped over to the next question, avoiding an embarrassment to the government on the issue. From taxation to voluntary movements, enlightened governments across the world are encouraging citizens to switch to the reusable bags we export from India. But it looks like our environment ministry has no clue of what a huge amount of harm plastic waste is doing to India’s environment, to it’s people’s health and to it’s animal and marine life. Sad. I expected better from this government.

Science sans perspective is dangerous

This morning I was appalled to read an article in the Indian Express that said “NO NEED to kick this plastic habit” Seems some ATIRA scientist has found a way for plastic bags to become brittle and turn into a fine powder when exposed to sunlight. And the Indian Express article implied that plastic bags were now “safe!” Until now, innocent animals and marine creatures, who couldn’t differentiate between plastic bags and food swallowed the stuff and died horrible deaths because plastic is indigestible, and full of poisonous toxins. Now, all us humans can also kill ourselves the same way, because that fine plastic powder will mix with the soil we grow our food in and the water we drink. Brilliant. I’ve written to the editor of the Indian Express. Let’s see if he is responsible enough to correct the dangerous impression his readers must have got. Then I phoned the scientist. He admitted that this fine powder would retain all its original chemical properties. But it didn’t seem to worry him. I thought scientists could think. ATIRA is the acronym for the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association. In a country where millions derive their livelihoods from growing and processing cotton and jute ATIRA ought to be finding ways to make re-usable cloth bags more attractive, rather than researching ways to make plastic even more dangerous than it presently is. At http://www.badlani.com/bags we sell reusable cloth bags every day of the week to customers all over the world, but awareness of the harm that plastic bags do is abysmally low in India. Amongst the less educated and exposed, this is understandable, but amongst scientists and journalists? This is very, very sad.

Japan addresses plastic bags waste issue

The Daily Yomiuri today reported that Japan’s Environment Ministry has decided to forbid retailers to hand out free bags. The ministry hopes to submit a bill to revise the law in the ordinary Diet session next year. Wise. The Japanese throw away 30 billion plastic bags annually. As one of the cleanest, most well-kept societies in the world, the Japanese have a deep stake in keeping their environment safe from the havoc that plastic bags wreak on the world. The National Association of Super Markets expressed some sympathy for the idea saying in a statement, "We can reduce free handouts of plastic bags by charging the shoppers, which would cut the cost at supermarkets." However, it also expressed concern over receiving complaints from shoppers and expected a decline in sales. The success of Australian communities in reducing plastic bags waste might assuage their worries. The Japanese are an aware society. Just a couple of activists can probably translate a rule into a personal mission for individuals. Like Ben Kearney did in Coles Bay, Australia. Coles Bay saved their town from more than 300000 plastic bags by introducing an attractive and practical alternative. On our website, we call it the # B06. It’s made from nonwoven polypropylene. Not in itself an ecological material, but reusable, and well designed. At Norquest, we’ve now developed a version from laminated jute. Acting from the belief that most humans prefer the textures of nature. If you’re going to use a reusable shopping bag we might as well design one that looks and feels good to you. The jute version is an absolute delight. We'll have a picture up very soon. We have lots and lots of attractive and economical options on show at http://www.badlani.com/bags and we hope we’ll get more Japanese folks looking at them now. Well done, Japan! Way to go!

Here it is - the jute supermarket bag

Sure is a great looking bag, isn’t it? We call it the Jute #B06. Attractive, economical and capable of saving the world from the waste of as many as 1000 plastic bags, this bag is a hero! Packing and shipping costs are being worked out even as I write this, and we hope to have this lovely bag up on our website very soon.

Roads from plastic waste. Great idea!

What a great idea! R Vasudevan, Head of the Department of Chemistry, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai has pioneered a way to use a mix of shredded plastic waste in making roads. t’s mixed in with the “metal” used to make the road and assists in binding it better, making it capable of withstanding heavy rains, reducing the amount to bitumen required. The development team believes it also offers better road grip than rubberized roads. Sounds seriously win-win to me. Much better than the blind eye all the authorities in India have been turning to the huge plastic waste problem we have here. Here’s a picture of these folks standing on their road. The lady’s the head of the college. I admire people who try to do something about the problems they see. I’ve been working with my friends, Prakash Vani and Himadri Ghosh to see if we can also do our bit, and we’ve succeeded in making some viable looking products from plastic waste using handlooms and devices that do not require any more energy input and can be made at home by even the poorest of the poor. I’ll have a story and a webpage about that effort up very shortly.

How your city can become plastic bag free

Fitzroy Falls sets a fine example of how this can easily be done. Some cities in Australia did this by having their local government invest in cloth bags and hand them out free to every citizen. Some cities that thrive on tourism had citizens take a pledge to each buy and use cloth bags. But Fitzroy Falls has followed what appears to be simplest path. They utilized the local retail network and citizens bought cloth bags from the retailers they do business with. The local council imported cloth bags at a lower cost because they could place a larger order than any individual could. Then they sold them to local retailers who are allowed to mark them up so that they can make some money on them and order more. Deputy Mayor Nick Campbell-Jones said the declaration of Fitzroy Falls as a plastic bag-free town was an example for the rest of the shire to follow. "This is the first locally-branded, re-useable shopping bag in the area and it goes some way towards the creation of a sustainable community," he said. Local students were encouraged to come up with a design for the re-useable bags which would express an environmentally responsible message and also promote the Fitzroy Falls region. "Early on we realised that the best way to proceed with the campaign was by consulting with the local community. We spoke to local businesses to establish what their issues of concern were as well as getting the kids involved in creating the design," Ms Katz said. "The launch today shows that even small communities can make a stand against plastic bags and offer viable alternatives. "Diane Garwood stressed the environmental damage plastic bags do to the environment. "Plastic bags have an enormous impact on the marine environment and are responsible for the deaths of 100,000 birds, seals or wild turtles every year," she said. Would you like your community to be plastic bag free? Write today to Rajiv@badlani.com and I’ll be happy to work out a specific plan for your community. You can select from the vast variety we have at www.badlani.com/bags and we’ll be happy to print your community’s message on them for you.

Plastics are a gender bender

The culprit is an ingredient in plastic goods called phthalates says a story in The Guardian. They seep into your food from plastic packaging and get into your bloodstream. Result: ‘Women with higher levels of four different phthalates were more likely to have baby boys with a range of conditions, from smaller penises and undescended testicles to a shorter perineum, the distance between the genitals and the anus,’ said the report. "Every aspect of male identity is altered when you see this in male animals," the article quoted Fred vom Saal, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, as saying. Levels of aggression, parenting behaviour and even learning speeds were affected, he said. The differences indicate a feminisation of the boys similar to that seen in animals exposed to the chemicals. Ouch! Switching to buying unpackaged food and carrying it home in our natural cotton bags seems like a smart thing to do, doesn’t it? Reusable cotton bags are attractive and affordable, as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/bags