Plastic Ain't My Bag
17 January 2008 00:00:00
Sainsbury's is once again joining forces with We Are What We Do, the global social change movement behind the Anya Hindmarch I'm Not A Plastic Bag project to support their Plastic Ain't My Bag campaign.
The campaign builds on the heightened awareness achieved by the Sainsbury's/We Are What We Do/Anya Hindmarch collaboration in the hope of encouraging shoppers to play their part in bringing about an end to the wasteful use of plastic shopping bags with the launch of a re-usable shopper, Plastic Ain't My Bag.
From January 2008, We Are What We Do's Plastic Ain't My Bag shopper will be available in over 450 Sainsbury's stores priced at £5.00, while stocks last.
Sainsbury's is committed to reducing the use of plastic bags, and has seen the use of its free carrier bags significantly drop in the last six months, suggesting that its 16 million customers are beginning to abandon the single-trip carrier bag in favour of longer-life re-usable bags.
Every person in the country uses an average of 167 plastic carrier bags every year. That's 10 billion bags all together*. Sainsbury's has been pioneering the way to reduce plastic bag consumption since the early 1990's and this latest addition to Sainsbury's re-usable collection, is hoped to further encourage shoppers to use re-usable shopping bags each time they visit the supermarket.
Beverley Whitfield, Sainsbury's bag buyer said: "We really believe that encouraging customers to shop with re-usable bags is the best solution and we hope this Plastic Ain't My Bag shopper will make it even more appealing for customers to do just that."
Eugenie Harvey, co-founder of We Are What We Do said: "We have been so inspired to see the shift in attitude towards shopping and bag use since the I'm Not a Plastic Bag launch in April. We are delighted to be launching Plastic Ain't My Bag in a prime retail environment and we think that it is a great opportunity for retailers and shoppers to demonstrate that we really do care about the damage we are doing to the environment as a result of some of our simplest every day actions."
*Source – DEFRA
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For further information please contact Rachel Bell on 020 7695 5530 or email rachel.bell[at]sainsburys.co.uk
Editor's notes:
About We Are What We Do:
We Are What We Do (www.wearewhatwedo.org) aims to inspire people to use simple everyday actions to change the world. The movement which was originated by the east London charity Community Links (www.community-links.org) was launched in September 2004 with the publication of the bestselling book Change the World for a Fiver. A sequel, Change the World 9 to 5 was published in September last year. The two books have now sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.
In addition to the book, We Are What We Do runs a community programme which is based in Newham which we plan to roll out nationally in the next 12 months; an education project for young people between the ages of 7-18 in partnership with the DCFS which will launch in September this year and a range of exciting partnerships such as the forthcoming Virgin Atlantic extravaganza.
About Sainsbury's:
Sainsbury's has been working to reduce the amount of plastic carrier bags given to customers for many years and as a result the company's customers already use less bags than other major supermarkets' customers.
The supermarket has seen the use of free disposable bags fall by 10% in the last six months compared to last year, and the use of re-usable bags soar by nearly 50%.
The decrease equates to a saving of 85 million free disposable bags, which prevents 750 tons of bags from going to landfill. The sharp decline in free carrier bags follows Sainsbury's three 'Make the difference' days during which Sainsbury's gave customers 15 million re-usable 'Bags for Life' to encourage re-use.
In September 2006 Sainsbury's also pioneered the first free supermarket carrier bag with a high content of recycled material and is still the only supermarket to offer customers this kind of bag. It includes 10% chalk and cuts the use of raw plastic by 43%. The orange bags, now in all stores, are made of 33% recycled carrier bag which means they've been a carrier bag before and can be again, and save 6,500 tonnes of virgin plastic raw material each year.
Sainsbury's also gave its entire workforce a specially produced copy of 'Change the World for a Fiver', written by We Are What We Do earlier this month. The tips in the We Are What We Do book are at the heart of the work Sainsbury's has been doing to encourage customers take positive action across a range of issues during its monthly 'Make the difference' days, and are hoped to inspire its 150,000 colleagues to take more green steps at home and work.