Bag ladies (and gentlemen)
I stopped by the Whole Foods near my office today to buy some tea. (Please, no "whole paycheck" jokes.) Instead of a regular plastic or paper bag, the checker offered me a reusable canvas one. It seems today was "free bag day" at Whole Foods, a promotion designed to highlight the chain's banishing of plastic bags.
This is a big move for a grocery chain, but it demonstrated to me how far we've come in just a few short years. It's become OK to ask shoppers for little -- some might say big -- inconveniences for the environment's sake. The shoppers I saw barely batted an eye at the banishing of their plastic; instead, they happily carted off their groceries in their new, reusable bag, and promised to bring it to the store the next time they shopped.
Now if only Whole Foods would start charging for paper bags, we could really put a dent in waste...
Leslie Carlson
in Market transformation
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Back in 1990 I started a company called Tree Savers. I manufactured and marketed canvas grocery bags. Not wanting to buy some "off shore" product, slap my logo on it and sell it as my own, I decided to have them made locally just outside Portland. My template for the bag design was simple, the paper grocery bag. My bags were shaped the same but were made of unbleached canvas with heavy cotton web handles. They were strong. I could actually stand inside one and get lifted by 2 strong guys without the bag failing. I began marketing the Tree Saver bags to smaller independent grocery stores in and around the Portland area. I did a "new local business" spot on one of the Portland news channels and mailed out samples to every grocery chain in the country hoping for a big score. Needless to say, I had missed the boat. Or rather, my boat wasn't big enough to compete with the big boys. As a micro-manufacturer, I was much too expensive to get my bags into the big stores and the demand in the smaller grocery stores was too small to sustain a profitable venture. That and a few other life changes convinced me to move back to Idaho. But, I'm happy to see that 18 years later, the idea of re-usable canvas grocery bags is still alive. I would be happy to know someone out there is still using my Tree Saver bags for hauling their groceries home. Thanks for bringing back the memories Leslie.
Hey Jon--nice to hear from you. My mom and I still have our TreeSaver bags, you'll be pleased to know...they have allowed us to use far fewer plastic or paper bags over many, many years. Thanks for stopping by!