The War on Plastic Bags

This week, I had the opportunity to serve as a judge for undergraduate students in Meriem Chida’s Product Development class.  A lecturer from the College of Arts and Sciences, Chida has researched sustainability and continues to incorporate it in the classroom experience.  Last Spring, her class focused on upcycled sustainable merchandise.  This year, they were given the task of rethinking the plastic bag used at checkout by vendors and retailers to come up with innovative, more sustainable alternatives.

In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade.

Between my two student groups, there were many different and interesting ideas:

• A recycling center where consumers can deposit plastic bags they have accumulated in order to be recycled.  As an incentive for using the service, a loyalty card would be used to track bag deposits and accrue credits which could then be used to make purchases or receive discounts at participating retail or grocery stores.  Although this solution doesn’t eliminate the evil bags, it does provide a relatively simple method of safer disposal while incenting the public to make the effort to do so in a more sustainable way.
• Reusable shopping bags made from old clothing.  The students even had a prototype – a tank top they converted to a bag using a shoe string.  While I doubt that this idea would scale up in the retail market, I think it would be a great item to add to Pinterest and has the potential to generate a trend following.  Plus, it serves the dual purpose of recycling clothing that is no longer wanted or wearable.
• Ingeo Plastic shopping baskets.  Developed by NatureWorks LLC, this bio-based plastic is a more sustainable option than the types of plastic widely used today, both in its production and its end-of-life options.
• Biodegradable bags attached to shopping carts.  This idea was derived from the biodegradable dog waste bags already available.  In conjunction with this option, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology would be used so that shoppers could scan and bag their items as they shop.  The personal scanner is an idea that has been around for a while and, as far as I can tell, is not currently in use because of a variety of foreseen complications (including a higher frequency of theft and a belief that if shoppers watch their total dollars increase as they shop, they may buy less).  However, I imagine as the technology improves, this could become a shopping option in the future.
• Roll-up and elastic-band bags for customizable bag sizing.  One complaint the students found in regards to current bagging options, especially in the context of reusable bags, is that they come in one generic size which doesn’t always fit the customer's needs.  This solution allows the customer to adjust the bag size to accommodate different items.
• Divided crates that move from trunk to shopping cart and back again.  Customers place items in compartments according to food type and can then easily transport them to the register, to the car, and ultimately into the kitchen (the compartments can be removed one at a time or as an entire unit).
• Fold-up weatherproof keychain bags.  This option is intended to be affixed to a customer’s keychain and used for quick trips when only a few items are needed.

While there are still some project iterations to complete, it was incredibly interesting to be involved in the design process with these students as they searched for a more sustainable way to shop.  The project also reminded me of one of my new favorite terms – slacktivism.  A combination of the words ‘slacker’ and ‘activism’, this refers to a generation of consumers who have a desire to “do good” but only if it is easy and convenient for them.  A recurring theme among all of the new ideas was that there needed to be a simple solution to the plastic bag problem that would not require consumers to significantly change their current shopping habits.

Above all, this experience motivated me to think critically about possible solutions to some of the unsustainable practices that are commonplace today…and to find the reusable bags I have strewn throughout my apartment and put them in my trunk for my next trip to the grocery store!

The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary