In a report today, IKEA announced that they’d be phasing out the use of plastic bags in the United States.
As part of a corporate strategy to go green, IKEA set a goal to reduce bag usage by 50%. In October, they began selling bags at the checkout line, charging $0.05 for a one-time-use plastic bag and charging $0.59 for a reusable bag (I’m assuming a recycled cloth bag, but I don’t shop at IKEA often, so I’m not sure.)
The program was a success, with a whopping 92% of customers opting to either purchase the reusable bags or not use bags at all. So, IKEA has decided to complete phase out plastic bags this year, as they previous did in their UK and Australian branches.
Side note: They donated all the proceeds from the bag sales to an organization focused on planting trees and savings our forests.
Plastic bags are a huge problem in today’s businesses. Single-use bags are not only filling our landfills - they are also made with nonrenewable petrochemicals. Even China is systematically phasing out their use.
And when China is banning something, we in the United States need to sit up and take notice.
Does this make me want to shop at IKEA more often? Yes. I’m interested to see what else this company is doing to go green.
Source: GreenBiz.com
Picture from WikiCommons by Stern.
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