"After Earth Day 2007, the (reusable) bags turned up on everyone's list as one of the top ways to save the environment," says Vincent Cobb, founder of the Chicago-based Reusablebags.com, a line of eco-friendly products that includes grocery totes and produce bags. "They're right up there with eco-friendly water bottles and incandescent lights." And yes, using the bags is a good start, he adds, but not if you just buy them on a whim or out of guilt – and then don't use them. "It needs to become a habit," he says.
We’ve all experienced frustration at the checkout counter when a bagger uses a different plastic bag for each item or even worse, double bags our groceries for “extra support”. Now that the practice of using reusable bags is catching on, it seems that the new common challenge is confusion at the checkout. Improved training on the part of stores will help, as will well-designed reusable bags that streamline the process.
Our Take: Several readers’ comments brought up the fact that the el cheapo “99 cent” reusable shopping bags have a tendency to fall apart --one of a number of problems associated with the explosion of “freebie” reusable shopping bags being produced by many retailers. Our advice is to resist accumulating cheap bags and invest in a handful of well-designed, attractive, durable ones that you will actually use for years to come.
Across the globe politicians and corporations are debating the effectiveness of plastic bag bans versus plastic bag taxes. Ireland, Italy and Belgium all tax plastic sacks, while places like San Francisco and China are banning them all together. Other countries and companies are implementing or considering recycling programs. Each attempt to deal with the issue has its pros and cons. According to Vincent Cobb, founder of ReusableBags.com, the movement has gained momentum. “We all have the tendency to buy too much stuff, and I think the symbolic nature is what has made this such a powerful thing.”
Our Take: Our founder was interviewed for this article – here is a quote: “A tax charged at checkout is what we need to change consumer behavior. Plastic bags aren’t inherently bad; it’s the mindlessness and volume of consumption.”
Hear from ReusableBags.com Founder, Vincent Cobb, who discusses how Ireland's Plastax (which helped reduce consumption of plastic bags in Ireland by 90%) inspired him.
The Plastax "is the wave of what's going to happen next"
Hear from ReusableBags.com Founder, Vincent Cobb, who speaks about plastic bags as a symbol of society's overconsumption, as well as their environmental impacts.
"Now you have ReusableBags.com, a site that sells a variety of bags designed with functionality and even fashion in mind."
View Good Morning America Now's segment on BYO-Bag. With a focus on how to remember your reusable shopping bags, many of the samples featured were from our store. Guest Olivia Zaleski "really recommend(s) looking at that website. They have everything for everyone."
Judith Morton fits the profile of an eco-friendly consumer: She worries about depleting natural resources, she recycles when she can, and she has three or four canvas shopping bags sitting at home.
Despite her good intentions, Morton's reusable shopping bags rarely leave her house, meaning that she still accumulates dozens of flimsy plastic grocery bags.
While thousands of shoppers have shifted to BYOB -- bring your own bag -- in lieu of answering the old "paper or plastic" question, many consumers struggle to make the switch.
"Our biggest concern with reusable bags is that people will get them and not use them," said Vincent Cobb, founder and president of Reusablebags.com, a Chicago-based Web site that promotes and sells reusable bags. "You're not going to fix the problem overnight. We've been programmed to shop this way. What's hard is not giving up."
Paper or plastic? Neither, thank you. That’s what eco-savvy consumers are saying these days when they go shopping. They’re shunning both in favor of BYOB — bring your own bag.
Most grocery stores have their own branded versions. They’ve also proliferated online at such sites as Denverbased delight.com and reusablebags.com, the latter of which features a counter that flashes the number of plastic bags used this year — more than 51 billion and counting, the last time we looked. Also included are tips from reusablebags.com on how to become a more eco-friendly shopper.
New York Times 02.02.08 & International Herald Tribune 01.31.08
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags...Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Drowning in a sea of plastic bags, countries from China to Australia, cities from San Francisco to New York have in the past year adopted a flurry of laws and regulations to address the problem, so far with mixed success.
After five years of the plastic bag tax, Ireland has changed the image of cloth bags, a feat advocates hope to achieve in the United States. Vincent Cobb, the president of reusablebags.com, who founded the company four years ago to promote the issue, said: “Using cloth bags has been seen as an extreme act of a crazed environmentalist. We want it to be seen as something a smart, progressive person would carry.”
Comment: Ireland has paved the way. What other countries, cities or states will step up, find the political will and follow suit?
In Illinois, members of a recycling task force are brainstorming ways to reduce plastic bag waste but an outright ban on the petroleum-based bags is not likely.
However, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Plastic Bag Recycling Act, calling for a voluntary, two-year pilot program in Lake County to determine the cost to retailers who implement plastic bag recycling programs.
But some, like Vincent Cobb, are inspired by Ireland's "Plastax" example and think it could be implemented in the United States. "Retailers were resisting it initially, but at the end of the day they’re going to save a heck of a lot of money," said Cobb, who founded Chicago-based Reusablebags.com, which sells its own line of reusable shopping bags.
Our Take: Measures like this highlight the 2 extremes - on one side is a complete ban of plastic bags, which puts retailers on the defensive, and on the other is a mandate to recycle bags, which does nothing to curb consumption. We're interested in the middle ground, and advocate reusable bags which both curb consumption and limit the use of plastic bags.
Whether it's about peer pressure, a deepening environmental conscience or a head start on the upscale grocery chain's campaign to ban plastic bags by Earth Day, far more customers are carrying their foodstuffs home in paper and reusable cloth sacks.
"It kind of blew me away with how quickly it took off," says Vincent Cobb, founder of Chicago-based ReusableBags.com, a cloth-bag retailer that has been advocating on the issue for the past five years.
For organic grocery store Whole Foods, the difference between them and the competition is in the bag. The national supermarket chain, including its two Tempe locations, will stop using plastic grocery bags starting Earth Day, April 22.
Plastic bag bans are gaining momentum in New York, China and Australia according to the advocacy site and online store reusablebags.com. Ireland began taxing the bags in 2002, leading to a 90 percent drop in the bags' use.
Plastic shopping bags, your day is done. That's the overwhelming sentiment lately as retail businesses and lawmakers take strides to eliminate the eco-hazardous items from store inventories.
Here's the 411 on why plastic bags harm the environment, according to Reusablebags.com, a Chicago company that sells, well, reusable bags: Plastic bags, which are made from petroleum by-products, aren't biodegradable. They slowly break down into tiny toxic bits, contaminating soil and waterways and eventually find their way into the food chain when animals unknowingly ingest them.
Having lived in Europe for a decade, I find most of North America painfully slow in enacting the appropriate legislation to promote environmental sustainability. While Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and Huntington, Quebec may have banned plastic bags here at home, these are isolated and community-based initiatives; not country-wide legislation that could make a serious dent in the issue.
I recognize that, thanks to Hollywood and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", the environment has become a fashionable cause to rally behind. "Statement" cotton bags are all the rage! Last year's Anja Hindmarch-designed and much-hyped about "I'm not a plastic bag" tote, became an immediate seller, as fashion-conscious shoppers clamored to get their hands on one. I'm no better, professing a love for my "Plastic bags blow" organic cotton shopping bag, available from www.reusablebags.com.
Sure these bags have become trendy in a shallow and vain sort of way, but –again—I don't care how people come about their environmental consciousness, as long as they do and as long as every little decision and step along the way contributes to making plastic bags passé and a relic of the past.
Reusable grocery bags might not sound very Earth-saving, but they can be if more people started to use them. Reusablebags.com launched in August 2003 and the site is very well-respected. It sells fashionable reusable bags in all sizes as well as featuring news articles and a plentiful amount of vital information about the environment.
"My advice to everyone is to refuse plastic whenever possible, reuse plastic bags you do get and use reusable shopping bags," Reusablebags.com President Vincent Cobb said. "Soon it will be odd to not use reusable shopping bags. This trend will get more popular over the coming years."
Al Gore, former vice president, talks about using reusable bags in his book and movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." Reusablebags.com was even mentioned and endorsed by Gore. As said in the book, "... carry a reusable bag and when asked paper or plastic, say neither."
Reusable.com has sold about 250,000 bags since the site started and it plans to sell tons more.
Reusable grocery bags are popping up at stores all over, and not only in places where you buy groceries. The bags have gotten hipper and more affordable, too, with many retailers introducing totes as low as 99 cents. Today, it’s not so hard to find one on eBay.
That’s why Vincent Cobb, the founder and president of reusablebags.com, is leery about the cheap, reusable bag trend. He started selling reusable shopping bags and baskets online in 2003. “The risk we run into with all these cheap bags is that people are just going to accumulate all these bags in their closet,” he said. “I think the big thing now is for people to find the good ones.”
It's impossible to count how many customers are reusing bags, but area retailers say they've seen an uptick in recent months. Plastic bags are an easy target for retailers trying to go green, since they take oil to make and fill landfills. But some experts say that the practice will stick around even after the fad wears off.
"There's a trendiness to it, but the underlying fundamentals are there," said Vincent Cobb of reusablebags.com. "There's something permanent in the society moving forward. And there will start to be a little stigma to the plastic bags."
Prompted by environmental and consumer concerns, some grocery stores are banning thin plastic bags this spring. The super-thin grocery bag, usually made out of polyethylene film, came along just 25 years ago to alleviate our burdens, and in that short time it has spread across the world like an urban tumbleweed.
The global use of plastic bags amounts to 100 billion a year, according to the Film and Bag Federation, an industry trade group. Others say it's much higher, approaching 100 billion in the United States alone. The website Reusablebags.com has a running ticker of U.S. bag consumption which, as of last night, topped 29 billion.
New York City is requiring new measures to increase the recyling of plastic shopping bags. China has announced it's banning them. Such measures are making reusable bags a big business. Host Tess Vigeland talks with Vincent Cobb, president of Reusablebags.com.
Chicago-based ReusableBags.com is the People's Choice for Green Business of the Year from Co-op America. The Award was announced this month at the San Francisco Green Festival. ReusableBags.com estimates that it has helped 70,000 customers to reduce their consumption of use-and-toss items (such as petroleum-based plastic shopping bags) by 190 million units.
ReusableBags.com Founder Vincent Cobb said: "Our ongoing mission since day one has been to change the status quo of society's use-and-toss mentality by providing sound, practical ideas and products. We were honored to be nominated the past two years for this Award. And it is a thrill to be the winner of this attention in 2007."
ReusableBags.com made MSN's recent list. According to MSN.com, you can be proud of yourselves, even if you can only make one or two of these green changes. Check out Strategy 6: Reuse plastic bags. "Instead of chucking 100 billion plastic sacks a year (wow!), try and get a second, third, or tenth use out of them. Tote your lunch to work or your groceries home, or at least use them as garbage bags. Better yet, next time you shop, try a reusable bag. Learn how at ReusableBags.com."
In the wake of San Francisco's recent ban on plastic grocery bags, other jurisdictions from Los Angeles to New Jersey are considering restrictions on the use of plastic bags. And since last summer, California law has required all large supermarkets to offer reusable bags for sale. Meanwhile, worries about climate change and marine pollution are leading more individual consumers throughout the country to answer "none of the above" when faced with the cliched choice of "Paper or plastic?" "The market has absolutely exploded," said Vincent Cobb, founder of ReusableBags.com, an online store that has sold a wide selection of grocery totes since 2002. "If you asked me two years ago, there were dozens of reusable bags. Now there are a hundred or more."
The Wall Street Journal’s Catalog Critic critiques reusable shopping bags: “we wanted lightweight, strong bags spacious enough for lots of locally grown produce and organic spelt flakes. But -- this was harder -- we also sought chic sacks with no strident slogans. To test our five candidates, we brought them to the store and loaded them with half-gallons of milk, canned goods, a baby watermelon -- the usual.”
Best Overall, the Acme Workhorse 1500, was styled like a typical plastic grocery sack. Of nearly weightless nylon, it folded into a tiny rectangle for storage.
Our take: We are very proud to have our Acme Workhorse bag selected as "Best Overall" -- we spent over 2 yrs developing and refining this bag - as with all bags we develop, we really sweat the details! Since its introduction back in early 2003 it has been one of our most popular bags and has inspired lots of knockoffs. Look for more outstanding products and innovations from our award winning line of Acme Bags!
Co-op America, whose mission is to harness economic power to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society, has been holding an annual competition since 2005 for Green Business of the Year. The Co-op America People's Choice Award celebrates leaders of the green economy and challenges corporate America to follow their path.
ReusableBags.com is one of the only companies to be a Top-Ten Nominee for the second year running - a testament to the impact the company is making:
Moving the plastic bag issue into the mainstream consciousness & promoting the wisdom of reusable shopping bags as an important part of the solution
Offering high-quality, practical products made from truly sustainable materials with fair labor/fair trade practices
Enabling 70,000 customers to reduce their consumption of use-and-toss items by an estimated 190 millions units
Joining the likes of Patagonia, 1% of sales are donated to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment
Vote Today! If you applaud ReusableBags.com's efforts please click here to cast your vote and help them win the Green Business of the Year award.
To learn more about ReusableBags.com mission, click here.
When I finally made the decision six years ago to begin to use reusable bags I thought it would be easy. In fact, it was far from simple.
Look around your home for some bags that you can bring to the store. Make it a family project to decorate your reusable shopping bags. Local grocery stores and other local stores sell affordable and reusable handle bags. Try it, you just might like it!
Concerned over the environmental damage caused by the billions of paper and plastic shopping bags discarded every year, shopper Denise Miller simply brings her own canvas bag to fill with groceries and carry home. She may not be in the minority for long.
With environmentalists targeting plastic shopping bags as a massive source of litter and waste, a growing number of cities and nations are passing laws and levies to reduce their use.
In the United States, the trend is being pushed by another simple reality: while certain forms of plastic packaging would be hard to do without, plastic shopping bags are easily replaceable. Vincent Cobbs, founder and president of reusablebags.com, a Web-based business which sells environmentally friendly alternatives to disposable shopping bags, drinking bottles and other products, said business is up 20 percent in the last two months, with most people buying canvas shopping bags.
Plastic, once hailed as a modern-day wonder, has faced increasing scrutiny over its impact on the environment. The estimates of how many plastic bags used annually vary wildly from 500 billion to anywhere up to 1 trillion. Even taking the more conservative estimate of 500 billion still roughly translates as 1 million every minute, according to Reusablebags.com.
According to Fast Company, in any given week in the United States, 1 billion bottles of water are being moved around the country, with Americans consuming 50 billion bottles each year. Of that, a whopping 38 billion of them are being sent to landfills, while on a daily basis 60 million just get chucked away.
The conclusion that more people appear to be coming to as the best choice for the future of plastic is one of two options: reuse or stop production at source.
These eco-friendly totes take a load off your mind, arms. If green is the new black, then a reusable tote is the new must-have designer handbag. Of course, the Anya Hindmarch "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" tote is out of the question. Fear not. The reusable-bag movement is in full swing, with options for everyone from trendy fashionistas to serious eco-friendly shoppers."There's a lot more out there than the straight-ahead canvas bag," says Vincent Cobb, founder of reusablebags .com.
There is universal agreement when it comes to features to consider when looking for the right reusable bag: personal style, a wide-enough base, sturdy fabric and an ability to be compactly stored when heading out for a shopping spree. The bags sold by ReusableBags.com are "fully green, all the way down to the ink used to print the slogan," says Cobb.
Our Take: The thrust of the story is practical bags versus fashionista bags - of the hundreds of options of reusable bags out there, the editors endorsed a total of 3, all of which were from our proprietary Acme bags line. Our bags were considered "seriously green" and "perfect for the activist."
By a 10-1 Board of Supervisors’ vote, San Francisco became the first
major American city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic bags by
supermarkets, drug stores and other large retailers. Yet another alternative is to sell consumers reusable bags...
“The paper versus plastics question takes us off the issue, which
is consumption,” says Vincent Cobb, who offers reusable bags and
containers on the Internet. “Getting into the habit of bringing your
own shopping bag,” he says, “can slash this problem across the board.”
ReusableBags.com founder Vincent Cobb interviewed by ABC News about IKEA implementing a charge for plastic bags, BYOB (bring your own bag) trends in the U.S. and other "banning the plastic bag" initiatives.
As a country, the United States throws away approximately 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags a year—less than 1 percent are recycled, the Worldwatch Institute reports. Despite the fact that just about any plastic bag brought home from the supermarket is reusable (and can take 1,000 years to degrade, according to the Environmental Protection Agency), the average family accumulates 60 of them in just four trips to the grocery store, according to reusablebags.com. (IKEA’s 59-cent Big Blue Bag is made of plastic, but “it would take 1,000 uses for it to be unusable,” according to their spokesperson.)
We're very proud of our recent endorsement in the appendix of Al Gore's blockbuster book addressing global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. It states, "To purchase reusable bags, learn more bag facts, and find actions you can take, visit www.reusablebags.com" (pg. 316). The appendix offers a handful of practical tips with the overarching philosophy of "Consume less, conserve more."
Using our key statistics, facts and sound bites, Gore develops a succinct pitch to raise awareness to the many problems associated with use-and-toss shopping bags:
"...an estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed world-wide every year. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 12,000,000 barrels of oil are required to produce the 100 billion consumed annually... furthermore, paper bags are no better than plastic." Paper bag production delivers a global warming double-whammy -- forests (major absorbers of greenhouse gases) have to be cut down, and then the subsequent manufacturing of bags produces greenhouse gases. In short, carry a reusable bag and when asked paper or plastic, say neither... (pgs. 315-316).
Gore then touches on a parallel cause we have been passionately committed to for several years, carrying your own refillable bottle, for water or other beverages as a smart alternative to use-and-toss disposables. Gore urges, "Instead of buying single-use plastic bottles that require significant energy and resources to produce, buy a reusable container and fill it up yourself. In addition to the emissions created by producing the bottles themselves, imported water is especially energy inefficient because it has to be transported over long distances..." (pg. 316).
Co-op America, whose mission is to harness economic power to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society, has been holding an annual competition since 2005 for Green Business of the Year. The Co-op America People's Choice Award celebrates leaders of the green economy and challenges corporate America to follow their path.
