I'm Not A Plastic Bag

Something I saw yesterday evening really made me wonder about where we are going with ‘Green’ marketing…

A well-dressed, fashionable woman in her 30s or 40s was stood near Paddington Station looking for a cab. Over her shoulder was an Anya Hindmarch ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’ shopper. You know - the one that was a limited edition for Sainsbury’s and which had customers queuing from 3am earlier this week.

Seemingly oblivious to any inconsistency in her behaviour the woman was holding two plastic carrier bags, whilst the Hindmarch bag itself was visibly near empty (save perhaps one or two handbag essentials).

We’ve said before on this blog that ‘Green’ has definitely become more of a mainstream concern and have been optimistic about what this could mean. Yet, observing this behaviour does make me worry that in becoming so mainstream ‘Green’ becomes just another temporary and rather meaningless fashion badge with people saying but not really doing ‘Green’.

The event appears to have been successful in terms of media attention (even with the question of production in China) and yet if Hindmarch and Sainsbury’s really do want to challenge our behaviour should they not have produced enough of the bags for all of Sainsbury’s 16 million customers?

As Justin King, CEO Sainsbury’s is quoted as saying on www.wearewhatwedo.org
“We strongly believe that encouraging customers to shop with re-usable bags is the best solution, and this one-off Anya Hindmarch bag will make it much more appealing for customers to do that. It’s also great news that our 16 million customers will be able to buy an Anya Hindmarch bag as well as helping the environment.”