Reusable Bags: Too Much Of A Good Thing??

The hot swag item of the moment - reusable shopping bags - is quickly becoming a subject of controversy. Well-meaning companies with green aspirations have been giving them away at record rates at events and for promotional purposes. We at Swag Connection get calls almost daily from companies looking to hop on the reusable bag bandwagon and our suppliers are scrambling to keep up with demand.

Trouble is, so many of these bags have flooded the market that a bag backlash is beginning to brew. Friday's Wall Street Journal article entitled "An Inconvenient Bag" was the first to expose the unintended consequences of all these green intentions (click the highlighted text above to read the article online). A Google search today confirmed this subject is all over the blogosphere now, and savvy marketers need to be aware of it.

Long story short, so many companies are giving out so many of these bags that people simply can't or won't use them all... and they're ending up in landfills instead. They take more energy and resources to produce than the plastic disposable bags they're designed to replace, and they don't decompose all that quickly. So instead of being the solution, they're quickly becoming part of the problem.

Another thing to consider is that the big retailers providing these bags are getting the best price on large quantities by sourcing them from China. These cheap bags are made from non-woven polypropylene, which takes about 28 times as much energy to produce than the plastic used in disposable plastic grocery bags (and about 8 times more than paper bags). Very few of these bags contain much recycled content and their 'green' status may be overrated.

Lastly, it's the old "you can lead a horse to water" problem. No matter how many reusable bags you give to people, it isn't really earth-friendly swag until the people actually RE-USE THE BAGS! And that's the problem. The WSJ article sites a survey of 500 viewers done by a San Francisco TV station that found 58% never took reusable grocery bags to the store with them. And this is in one of the greenest cities in America! Other sources in the same article estimate the percentage of shoppers reusing bags is as low as 10%. Sounds like we need to change people's habits... not hand out more bags.

So if you're looking for earth-friendly swag ideas, I suggest you look beyond the bag. You'll find a lot of green swag ideas right here on my blog, and even more on our searchable website: www.swagconnection.com. My Swag Team and I are also here to give you great green ideas... all you need to do is call or email us.

Thanks for reading and please tell others about my blog!

Diane Nudelman - "The Swag Queen"