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

Scotland will tax plastic bags

I just read an article by Jeremy Watson in the Scotland News that the Scots will soon be charging a 10 cent tax on disposable plastic bags. Scotland uses about a billion bags a year totaling up to 6,500 tons of waste. Most are buried in landfill sites, where they can take hundreds of years to degrade, but many litter urban areas, the countryside and the sea, where they can become a major hazard for wildlife. The stomachs of whales and seabirds washed up on Scottish shores have been found to be filled with plastic bag fragments, which may have contributed to their deaths. The sums raised will be collected from shops by local council officers and the profits spent on environmental projects. In Ireland, where a similar bill has reduced plastic bag usage by 95% since being introduced in 2002, the levy has already raised £23m, says Jeremy. Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Pringle, who introduced the bill, says that the Irish levy had been "a huge success", adding: "As well as reducing the number of plastic bags being thrown away, it has really increased awareness of recycling in general” Councils in Scotland are backing a levy as it would save them millions of pounds in landfill charges, as well as providing cash for new environmental programmes. Predictably, the British Plastics Federation, is carping about it, but Mike Pringle has the answer “Free plastic bags only became common in the 1970s. Before that our forebears managed very well without them." Reusable cloth bags are an attractive and affordable alternative, as can be seen at http://www.badlani.com/bags The guys who oppose the taxation bill should read some of the stories on this weblog, including the one which tells you how plastic chemicals leaching into your food from packaging and doing a gender bender on newborn babies.

No wonder the Japanese succeed at everything

Clearly they are a more evolved society than most others. Elsewhere, governments are facing opposition from retailers when they propose a tax on plastic bags, but not in Japan. Here, the Japan Chain Stores Association have themselves called for a law to enable stores to charge customers for plastic shopping bags. The industry body said retailers have incurred growing costs for recycling plastic trays and other recyclable containers. It said if those costs continue to increase, some retailers might become unable to shoulder the burden and Japan's "recycling system might collapse." What an admirable perspective. Smart guys, the Japanese. Look at how clean Japan is. Bring in a tax on plastic bags and usage does drop. It fell 95% in Ireland. Getting used to carrying reusable cloth bags is obviously something humans can adapt to fairly quickly. For those who forget to carry it or want the luxury of not needing to carry it, a small tax makes sense. Before plastic bags started getting distributed free after the 70s, we managed didn’t we? Reusable cloth bags are attractive and affordable as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/bags

Witches Knickers

Barbara Wallraff tells us in the The Atlantic Monthly that this is what the Irish call fugitive plastic bags that fly around and snag everywhere. Completely fitting. Lee Buenaventura, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, felt nearly the same way, but she suggested giving the term a "tweak" to Americanize it: witches' britches. Other interesting American terms: Urban Tumbleweed, Shoppers' Kites; Sheilah Zimpel, of Raleigh, North Carolina, wrote, "Here in the South we call that white trash." A whole new lexicon is emerging to describe this blight. I’ll soon add some non-American terms that are being used. What words would you use to describe things that are killing animals and marine life, poisoning your food, compromising the masculinity of unborn boys or being just plain ugly? All contributions welcome. The reusable bags we offer at http://www.badlani.com/bags are attractive, affordable and a whole lot healthier for our planet and for our lives.

Preity’s no bimbette

Contradicting the clichéd assumption that babes lack brains, Bollywood superstar Priety Zinta is clearly a thinking woman. ‘‘I want to urge people not to litter and turn our city into a big dump before we all die of diseases and toxic poisoning,’’ she fumes. The first thing on Zinta’s agenda is to ask the authorities to ban plastic bags in Maharashtra. ‘‘We have to stop using polythene bags. We must adopt brown bags. They have banned plastic in Shimla and it’s already looking good,’’ she reasons.Preity, we already have a law against plastic bags but it isn’t implemented. And brown bags, by which I assume you mean paper bags, aren’t a great option. Paper bags are made by cutting down trees that take more than 20 years to grow. When they are cut to spread literature and news and knowledge, maybe it’s worth it, but to make a paper bag that gets used just once? Terribly wasteful, in my opinion. Cloth bags are reusable and that’s the real answer. The sign of a mature society is when people give up a little convenience for the overall good of their environment. Carrying one’s own shopping bags is a small price to pay to pay for a cleaner city. And the price is truly small as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/bags/ Mumbaikars ought to be specially sensitive to this. Discarded plastic bags contributed substantially to creating the choking of drains that led to the recent floods the city experienced.