Treehugger raises ethical concerns over the trendy, £5 canvas grocery bags, designed by Anya Hindmarch. The bags are produced in China using cheap labor, composed of non-organic materials, and fail to meet fair trade standards. Not eco friendly at all.
The bag’s selling point, other than the celebrity hype, is the slogan. “I’m not a plastic bag” is scrawled across the canvas; a concept that was originally conceived to raise awareness and profits for We Are What We Do, a London based environmental movement.
While the whole idea might have started out with good intentions, the bag’s startling popularity (Treehugger reports that 200,000 sold out in 7 hours, fetching up to £250 a pop on ebay) seems to have shifted the focus away from ethical consumerism and towards the lucrative potential of an “it” bag. Any positive environmental impact is surely compromised by the wastes of mass production.
Contributed by Jonas E Pellis
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
I have some mixed feelings about the philosophy (Viridian taken as meaning ‘get stars to flaunt something and everyone will want it’) behind the not-a-bag. Is that challenging prevailing consumer culture prob not; its the same idea as the Kate Moss range from TopShop applied to a different result.
But manifestly it worked in raising awareness of the issue (we get through 10 billion a year in the uk and not only are they made in china but those which get recycled mostly make their way back there). As a substitute to shopping bags 1. anything made of cloth or reused is better 2. there are only 20,000 btw (not 200,000 as you said) vs the 7 million ‘bags for life’ Sainsbury gave away 2 days later. It’s a poster campaign in other words.
Plus it wasnt Sainsbury’s idea it came from the lovely people behind ‘changetheworldforafiver’ http://www.wearewhatwedo.org
I dont trust The Standard to be my eco guardian particularly. The uk media love to idealise and then trash anything and anyone. Its not morally based its just a story. The evening standard gives away a glut of free papers every night that litter my journey home and I think someone should look at every aspect of their business and see if they are remotely as sustainability minded as Sainsbury. And Treehugger can be a bit random eg the same contributor seemed to be all for it a few months ago when she first wrote about the hindmarch bag in january, also quoting the evening standard as her source. Some said at the time its not perfect & they could have used more considered materials but most nodded to it as broadly a good idea.
I say give them some benefit of the doubt, accept all progress as progress and lets not be in too much of a hurry to attack stuff if it isnt perfect.
Not to say their manufacturing and materials strategy was the right set of decisions; but bear in mind how fast the scene is moving. My guess is a year ago it looked ‘good enough’ and now it looks less so but that’s for a different reason than them being hypocrites, its just that the ‘good enough’ line keeps moving and on the whole thats a good thing, so long as we dont entirely discourage those corporates trying to keep up. Organic cotton is still hard to source (and expensive, but my guess is that the £5 tag came from change the world for a fiver, but they easily could have sold this for £10 otherwise) and you have to do so far in advance; hard to do dor a 1 off project perhaps. If they had made it in Africa with recycled cotton someone would have written a story still on ‘bag miles’ & the fact its not locally made.
Long comment sorry, but I’m loathe to see people & companies who are trying attacked for falling short
peace :J
May 1st, 2007 at 9:36 pm
My thoughts exactly
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 am
OOps – my thoughts exactly
http://goldandsilverstars.blogspot.com/2007/04/it-tote.html
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 am
John,
We’ve made some comments about the bag on our blog and have had a conversation with people from we are what we do. They most definitely have fallen short – but to us the main problem they had was labelling this this as environmentally friendly. It’s only that if people use it in that way – and when we aasked them they have no way of measuring if people are using them in that way – a wasted opportunity.
http://www.fairbrand.org/blog – have a look at our comments and get in touch.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:17 am
I’m desperately looking for this Anya Hindmarch “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” bag i’m in love with. I live in Barbados, Caribbean and it is not here. Can anyone please tell me where I can buy it? Please don’t tell me eBay. My arm is lonely without this bag.
http://www.yuppiegurl.blogspot.com/
June 27th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
I love this site and the color theme. Indeed I searched the “I am not a plastic bag” and leading me here.
BTW, I am an owner of ecobags maker in Shenzhen, China.
Come to see us http://www.charrmy.com
Maybe we have chance to work~
August 12th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Since I did not get my “i’m not a plastic bag” I now trot around with my cute chic Earth Day reusable grocery bags from this website. I’m warning you they can be addictive.
http://www.cafepress.com/day_earth
February 6th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Since I did not get my “i’m not a plastic bag” I now trot around with my cute chic Earth Day reusable grocery bags from this website. I’m warning you they can be addictive.
http://www.cafepress.com/day_earth/4563204
February 6th, 2008 at 10:54 am