As of October 1, 2008, IKEA will no longer offer plastic bags! The offering will only be our iconic IKEA blue bag for only 59¢ or use an alternative reusable bag from home.
It's a dialogue we hear everyday. Can we? Do we? Will we really change our behavior to be environmentally responsible? IKEA believed we could and would. With the introduction of its leadership ‘Bag the Plastic Bag’ program in March 2007, IKEA set a goal of reducing its U.S. stores’ plastic bag consumption by 50%; from 70 million to 35 million plastic bags in the first year. The call was to go reusable with the iconic IKEA blue bag for $.59 or use an alternative reusable bag.
And IKEA also said if that was not an acceptable solution, IKEA plastic bags could be purchased for five-cents, with all proceeds going to American Forests (the nation’s oldest non-profit citizen’s conservation organization) to plant trees to restore forests and help reduce CO2 emissions.
Now it’s over a year since the program began and IKEA is overwhelmed with the stunning results; more than 92% of their customers said no more plastic bags! Expectations were exceeded and IKEA learned their customers welcome the opportunity to find new ways to be environmentally responsible.
This landmark program has now resulted in IKEA taking another step forward; as of October 1, 2008, IKEA will no longer offer plastic bags, and paper bags are not available in IKEA stores either. IKEA’s consumer call-to-action is to use only reusable bags.
And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. consumes over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps each year. Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags, and less than one percent of them are recycled. The average plastic bags takes 1000 years to photo degrade, which means they do not fully decompose.
