Ikea to ban plastic shopping bags in October
Ikea plans to stop offering plastic shopping bags to customers at its US stores by starting in October. Last year the retailer with the big blue box stories and the big blue shopping bags began selling reusable bags for 59 cents a piece, and started charging 5 cents for every single use plastic bag in an effort to cut down on the number of plastic bags used.
Ikea now says 92 percent of its customers went without the plastic bags, which paves the way for the company to stop offering them altogether. The move will likely be easier for Ikea than some retailers, since Ikea locations tend to sell large items like furniture along with smaller items like tasty Swedish cookies 
and Lingonberry preservers. Cookies aside, it's likely that most Ikea customers aren't going to try to cram their new couch or kitchen table in a plastic bag. And since Ikea stores tend to have large parking lots, you can probably just pull the car up to the door and drop your items into the back seat. 
But Ikea isn't alone in banning plastic bags. Whole Foods is also phasing them out, and cities and countries around the world are getting into the act as well. I even saw a sign at my local grocery store in Brooklyn encouraging people to buy or bring reusable bags because it might not be too long before plastic shopping bags are extinct.
[via Environmental Leader]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
4-03-2008 @ 3:41PM
Mama T said...
In Canada, those 59 cent bags are 99 cents. What's with that? Hello, Ikea? Make it equal, our dollar is as strong as the US one so stop overcharging us. But good for you about not offering plastic bags at all come October. I hope it happens up here in the great white north soon too.
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4-05-2008 @ 2:13PM
Lynn said...
It's probably because we Americans are more stubborn and need even more financial incentive to do the right thing. :|
But still, good on ya, Ikea!
4-05-2008 @ 3:49PM
bobandteri2 said...
Canada sucks!!! Do you think your dollar matches ours when you have to come to our country to get decent healthcare? Uh-huh...thought so.
4-05-2008 @ 4:22PM
REGGIE said...
wHY ARE SO MANY CANADIANS??? SO CHEAP!
ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY cross into THE States !!!
I have never met a generous Canadian ! They want everything for nothing !!!
4-05-2008 @ 9:08PM
jim said...
It isn't about how "good" the Canadian Dollar is! Canada is a separate nation with a separate economy. There was a time when it "cost" $1.40 Canadian to buy $1.00 US. It if I recall my school day's econ class is a function of how much added value goes into a Canadian dollar vrs a US dollar in the production of goods and services. ( I think its mostly dumb too)
In many ways, Canada today is much like the US was 40 years ago. Canadians are a lusty, hard working mostly christian nation. They tend to do whats right in Canada. That said. Canada is a good friend to the US and many of us on both sides of the border are intertwined with family on "the other side" Canada frequently votes against us on the world stage. I think there may be a repressed desire to finish that unpleasantness from the 19th century......America would do well to look to the North for leadership and guidance!! Don't talk trash about Canada !!!!!! It makes my grouchy(that's bad) You know that the inventor of the telephone was a Canadian,right?
4-04-2008 @ 12:33AM
UrbanFrugal said...
It's about education and location. Most items that people buy at Ikea do not fit into a bag easily anyway. Many people who shop at Whole Foods were bringing their own bags before the switch.
Phasing out bags at some stores is easier than others. Most large grocery stores where people make most of their grocery purchases still offer bags because it is convenient for the shoppers. Most people who shop at Whole Foods and Ikea don't have carts full of groceries that they carry.
If a grocery store showed a cart of groceries and then the number of bags that a bagger would actually use to put the groceries in and compare that with reusable alternatives people would be less likely to use to free flimsy bags.
http://www.urbanfrugal.com
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4-05-2008 @ 2:38PM
Matt Damon said...
Paper bags are worse than plastic bags. B/c with paper bags only 28% of paper bags used in retail stores are recycled versus 67% of plastic bags. And compound that with all of the trees cut down, big rig pollutions and paper factory pollution and you've got a product that is hyper destructive. While both are essentially bad, plastics are the less of two evils.
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4-05-2008 @ 9:06PM
bri1964 said...
Not true, Most paper bags in the USA are recycled. And those not decay in three years or less adding food compounds to the dump site for worms and such.
A plastic bag takes twenty years or more to decay. And is made from crude oil.
4-05-2008 @ 9:06PM
R. Posdal said...
Matt...they are not talking about paper bags. The reusables are a strong composite material.
4-05-2008 @ 3:49PM
NICK said...
I WONT SHOP AT IKEA. THE OWNER IS/WAS A NAZI. GOOGLE IKEA AND CHECK FOR YOURSELF.
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4-05-2008 @ 4:17PM
lin said...
He was a teen who was recruited and misled, like a lot of other teens in Nazi Germany. He did fundraising, but that was the extent of his involvement. He has written letters of apology and says he bitterly regrets that phase of his life.
4-05-2008 @ 3:50PM
Mary Davis said...
The only ones who benefit from "no free plastic bags at the market" are the market owners. No FREE plastic bags, so to wrap up my garbage I get to BUY a box of plastic bags from the market. Is this so difficult for everyone to figure out??
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4-05-2008 @ 3:50PM
cathy rohrscheib said...
im all for the green thing but hey why should i foot the bill for bags if they dont give you one i wouldnt shope there
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4-05-2008 @ 3:54PM
kate4334 said...
what is your problem why would you get into what ever the h*** problems you have with canada. canada is awsome and trash free. i enjoy visiting it every summer and hey dumb a** dont you relize canada is in america?
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4-05-2008 @ 5:13PM
MJ said...
Ummmm....since WHEN has Canada been in "America" (United States)???? Seems to me you've been watching too many Canadian movies! Hahahaha (I just saw a fictitious Canadian movie in which Canada became part of the U.S. lol) Wow, when I read these blogs, not sure if I should laugh or cry. LOL
4-05-2008 @ 9:04PM
Sarah said...
I agree with you, Kate. United States citizens (and I am one, by the way) have traditionally been arrogant enough to claim the word "American" as our own, but America actually encompasses a whole slew of countries on the continents of North America and South America. Other languages have a separate word for United States citizens. Take Spanish (Castillian)... people from Spain don't call us Americans, then call us Estadounidenses... which translates to people from the US.
There is a difference between patriotism and arrogance. We "estadounidenses" need to learn that.
4-05-2008 @ 6:46PM
Sarah said...
I agree with you, Kate. United States citizens (and I am one, by the way) have traditionally been arrogant enough to claim the word "American" as our own, but America actually encompasses a whole slew of countries on the continents of North America and South America. Other languages have a separate word for United States citizens. Take Spanish (Castillian)... people from Spain don't call us Americans, then call us Estadounidenses... which translates to people from the US.
There is a difference between patriotism and arrogance. We "estadounidenses" need to learn that.
4-05-2008 @ 4:10PM
Kara said...
When i was in the philippines and had several things to carry with me, I ended up buying a bag at the market made of an old rice sack for about 10 cents. Lasted about 6 months =3
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4-05-2008 @ 4:11PM
michele said...
What a farce. So now you have to BUY a bag. It's not about being "green." It's about bilking the consumer. And paper bags? Wonderful. More trees to get chopped down. Paper bags are used once and thrown away. Plastic bags, people can be RECYCLED !!!!!!! How much fuel are the big-deal execs from these companies who are making "green" decisions wasting in their private jets and expensive cars? How is the environment impacted by the huge homes they build? Do their wives wash diapers? Or do their kids use disposables? Give me a break.
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4-05-2008 @ 4:38PM
Karen said...
"What a farce. So now you have to BUY a bag. It's not about being "green." It's about bilking the consumer."
Yep. My local grocery store sells the bags with their logo for 99c. I bought four of them a couple months ago. And have already traded them in for new ones twice, because they get holes so easily.
The only thing I use them for is grocery shopping, which is what the store says they're made for, but if you put cans, or sturdy boxes with sharp corners, or corn on the cob in them, you get holes. Apparently they're only built to hold up for light stuff like potato chips and popped corn!
If they get dirty and you want to wash them to keep your food sanitary, they disintegrate in the washer, so you have to buy new ones. In what way is that "green"?
Or, I can keep taking the plastic bags and keep using them as trash can liners and to bag up my soda cans to give them to the homeless guy who recycles.
As for the scare tactic that plastic bags last forever in the landfill, I'm not buying it. I put some holiday stuff in the basement in plastic grocery bags, and when I wanted to bring the stuff back upstairs a year or two later, the bags shredded as I lifted them. And that was in the dark; I'm sure they'd disintegrate even faster in sunlight.