By Andrew Martin | New York Times
January 23, 2008
NEW YORK - The Whole Foods Market chain said Tuesday that it would stop offering plastic grocery bags, giving customers instead a choice between recycled paper or reusable bags.
A rising number of governments and retailers are banning plastic bags, or discouraging their use, because of concerns about their environmental impact. San Francisco banned plastic bags last year unless they are of a type that breaks down easily. China announced a crackdown on plastic bags a few weeks ago, while other governments, including New York City's, are making sure retailers offer plastic bag recycling.
Whole Foods officials said they had hoped to eliminate plastic bags for some time but had to decide how to make it work in the chain's 270 stores.
A.C. Gallo, the company's co-president and chief operating officer, said Whole Foods tried to get customers to buy reusable bags for several years but "it really never caught on." That changed when the grocery chain began offering reusable bags for 99 cents, he said.
Read Full Article from the Chicago Tribune
Thursday, January 24, 2008
At Whole Foods checkout, no more plastic bags
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Spotlight: Modern Arts Reusable Bags
Modern Arts features a large variety of reusable shopping bags. From simple to chic, these bags can be tailored to any retail market by adding a logo or starting from scratch to build a custom designed bag.
This heavy duty mesh tote bag fetures a 400 denier nylon bottom with a front pocket. It measures 22" X 16" X 5" and is available in unprinted stock or with a logo.
Visit shoppingbags.com for more details or get pricing for custom designed and printed reusable bags.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
A Piece of Modern Art: Never Mind What’s in Them, Bags Are the Fashion
A team of designers at Saks Fifth Avenue envisioned “a piece of modern art” and hired a renowned graphic artist to create it. Their counterparts at Lord & Taylor demanded five prototypes, even traveling to a Korean factory to oversee manufacturing.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Bags designed by David Lipman. Over at Bergdorf Goodman, staff members held secretive deliberations that stretched late into the night for nine months.
The focus of all this scurrying was not this fall’s couture line or next spring’s resort collection.
It was shopping bags.
Once a flimsy afterthought in American retailing — used to lug a purchase home from the store, then tossed into the trash — the lowly, free store bag is undergoing a luxurious makeover.
From upscale emporiums to midprice chains, retailers are engaged in a heated competition to make the most durable, fashionable shopping bags. They are investing millions of dollars in new flourishes like plastic-coated paper (Macy’s and Juicy Couture) and heavy fabric cord handles (Abercrombie & Fitch and Scoop).
Behind the battle of the bags is a significant shift in behavior that has turned consumers into walking billboards for stores. In cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, customers have begun treating shopping bags as disposable purses that can be reused for weeks, if not months, to carry laundry to the cleaners, books to the beach or lunch to the office.
But only the best bags make the cut. So stores, sensing a marketing opportunity, are racing to transform bare-bones bags into lavish, thick ones that will become free advertising.
Read the full NYT Story
ECO-FRIENDLY BAGS from NY Daily News
BY ELOISE PARKER DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, November 30th 2007, 4:00 AM
The 'Green NYC' tote at Barneys sells out at $75. Click for a look at other eco-conscious bags with luxury price tags.
You won't find the latest eco-friendly shopping bags at your local supermarket - and the price tags are enough to make you stay home.
Ranging from $75 for Barneys "Green NYC" tote to $1,720 for Louis Vuitton's "Love" satchel, the reusable shopping bags are speeding out of high-end stores faster than a Prius with a full tank.
Not bad for a humble cotton canvas carry-all.
"We're already thinking about rereordering," says Barneys public relations director, Kimberly Oser, who says the bags have been selling "incredibly well."
Barneys is the latest in a long line of retailers to cash in on the trend for all things green, but the price tag is a far cry from the likes of Trader Joe's modest $1.99 version.
Why spend so much more? "The environment is a hot topic right now, and as well as high-end quality, there's cachet involved in carrying these bags," reasons Emily Hsieh, a senior editor at Lucky magazine, who expects even more luxury retailers to bring out eco-friendly lines over the coming months.
And, rather than detracting from the real message, it seems the high-end prices are simply fueling the trend.
The Bag Lady, Forbes Magazine,
Anita Ahuja turns trash into treasure, and helps India's downtrodden ragpickers along the way.
A dozen men and women are hunched over sewing machines in a workshop in an industrial area in New Delhi. They are making totes from a blue fabric that is neither cloth nor leather. It's polyethylene. The source: plastic bags that once contained garbage. Now the totes are adorned with labels of designers from Germany, France and Russia, along with the creator: Conserve, a Delhi nonprofit organization.
Conserve is the work of Anita Ahuja, an author-turned-do-gooder and a native of Delhi. Recycling plastic bags into fashion accessories, her group helps clean up the streets of the Indian capital while bringing more pay and dignity to the downtrodden garbage pickers. She sells accessories, including handbags, jewelry and shoes, to wholesalers for $5 to $15 apiece.
The products show up in stores in Britain, France and the U.S. (including chains like Whole Foods (nasdaq: WFMI - news - people )) at anywhere from $16 to $50. So far she's sold 174,000 pieces. Last year Conserve brought in $317,000, keeping $150,000 in its for-profit arm. That money was put back into the business and used to run a school for the children of the ragpickers--200 enrolled and counting. Along the way, she's taking on Delhi's recycling mafia and the Indian bureaucracy, and getting a toehold in Parisian fashion.
View the full Forbes Story
Friday, January 4, 2008
Modern Arts Classics
Clean is Happy, one of Modern Arts latest packaging solutions. Visit their site
Recycled Paper Bags: Look for the Label
There are two types of recycled paper and different combinations of the two. Post-consumer paper or board is made from office waste or in the case of boxes, newspaper waste. and mill waste. Generally recycled paper is not as strong as virgin materials; however, new developments have produced 100% post consumer bag paper that is suitable for retail packaging. It is also possible to make mixtures of virgin and post consumer materials in order to enhance the strength factors for particular applications. Post-consumer packaging is made from recycled shopping bags and papers, while mill waster is new packaging created from left over materials at a paper mill. In general, post-consumer waste is the preferred material for recycling, both for strength and for the environment.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The E-Bag
HUDSON, NY 14 December 2007 -- We're pitching in and we're doing our part! Modern Arts new eco-smart E-Bag provides the best solutions to help solve wasteful packaging problems and while giving environmentally conscious consumers the shopping tote they're looking for.
Experts agree, it's best to "reuse" before it's recycled ... and the E-Bag delivers the best of both. The neatest, handiest, most functional and fashionable shopping tote in the marketplace, the fold-in-your-pocket E-Bag can be reused for a years before it's recycled.
The patented E-Bag is elegantly designed, graphically promotional, exceptionally functional ... and delivers promised saving to the environment and to the bottom line. Washable, durable and fun to carry, the E-Bag be can be hand held, slung over the shoulder or used as a back pack. Serving as billboards for brands and a boost for their green image, E-Bags can be printed in up to four colors.
"The response from retailers has been overwhelming," said Alex Lindsay president of Modern Arts. "Green is where the business is going and with the on-trend responding to consumer demands for smart eco-friendly products, the E-Bag business is booming."
In it's commitment to help improve the environment by delivering products that will help it best, Modern Arts also has a full line of base papers that are made of a 100% recycled paper.
For samples and more information about the Modern Art's E-Bag and its other e-solution products, please contact us.
