It's the only planet we have folks!

Helen Logan reports in the Evening Gazette that Ireland used 1.2 billion plastic bags before 2002, when a 15 cent tax was imposed on their usage.

Did it hurt business? Was the Irish government overthrown by distraught shoppers?

Not really.

What actually happened was that plastic bag usage fell by more than a billion bags within 5 months, and earned £2.25m for the Dublin exchequer to be spent on environmental protection projects.

“Many of us pick up and fill loads of plastic carriers when doing the weekly supermarket shop, without a second thought” says Helen, “imposing such a tax seems an easy way of cutting down on this type of consumption. People can either bring their own bags or at least be encouraged to re-use the plastic ones if they have had to pay for them”.

Common sense isn’t it?

The harm that these innocuous looking little plastic bags do cannot easily be visualized by everyone. If a 15 cent tax can bring the issue home, I’m all for it!

Doug Gordan wrote about how he bought some gum and the store clerk put his tiny purchase into a paper bag and then put the paper bag into a plastic bag. As he left the store, he took the pack out of the bag and threw the bag out in a corner trash can, giving the bag a total out-of-store lifespan of about two minutes.

Considering, he says, that so many New Yorkers are rarely without messenger bags, backpacks, or Louis Vuitton knock-offs, most have little use for plastic bags for the few items they might purchase during our daily routines.

If you want to rock the world of just about any convenience store employee, tell them that you don't need a bag to hold your purchase. Doug often pre-emptively does this. In return, he says, he’s greeted with looks that most people reserve for the insane and/or Tom Cruise.

Its become a habit, over-packaging everything. It’s a habit that is costing the world dearly.

Plastic bags don’t biodegrade and will stick around and blight our world for centuries to come. And as they fly around they will be eaten by innocent animals and marine life who will die painful deaths because their digestive systems get choked.

Reusable bags are the answer. Preferably cotton or jute bags. Completely biodegradable and far more stylish and amazingly affordable (see how affordable at http://www.badlani.com/bags)

What’s fascinating about Doug’s article is the number of comments its generated. I’m going to write a blog about those comments soon. The really good news is that they all support a pastic bag tax.

The San Francisco Chronicle had a story today comparing wooden decks with composite decks made from recycled plastic waste.

Bottom line, they say, go with wood, because composites also have a limited life span and are eventually not biodegradable. So finally they will contribute to the environmental burden our planet has to bear.

But the fact that companies like Trex, TimberTech, Louisiana Pacific, Epoch and CorrectDeck are finding uses for plastic waste is wonderful. We’re also doing what we can as you can see at http://www.badlani.com/recycle

If you, like many thinking people nowadays, are concerned about the environmental impact of your actions, please stick to using cotton bags.

We offer polypropylene and polyester options also, as they are reusable, not used-once-and-thrown-away like plastic bags, but our cotton and jute bags are best, because they will go, as nature intended, from dust-to-dust. See the options at http://www.badlani.com/bags

The assumption that what is good for the environment is bad for economic growth has once again resulted in facile results on environmental issues at G8 2005.

The fact remains that we have an environmental crisis on our hands, and concern for the issue looks like poor economics only as long as the costs of environmental degradation aren’t spelt out in dollars and pounds.

Change is essential and pushing for it will actually help poorer economies. Because it is only the less affluent who can see how much waste is being generated. Most Americans see their lifestyles as being “normal”. The excessive use of packaging and fossil fuels isn’t even visible to most of them.
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What do you need to create a successful brand? A huge advertising budget?

It helps, of course, to have oodles of money to back up your story, but I don’t think it’s the key ingredient at all.

If you’ve got enough passion, advertising budgets don’t matter. If you’re in love with your consumer and your product, a kind of magic happens that allows you to achieve big things with small bucks.

If this sounds like wishful thinking, here’s my own story.

In 1980 I launched a brand of jeans called Flying Machine literally on a shoestring budget. Its initial launch was done by kids who fell in love with the jeans and sold them to one another. They created such a rush on them that we couldn’t keep up with the demand!

Then, to enter the Mumbai market, I released one ad in the Times of India (yes, just one) and used one major billboard (which I negotiated at a bargain rate over a drink with the owner one evening because it was the monsoon season).

O&M made such a phenomenal ad for me that it was talked about for years after that. The credit goes to Ranjan Kapur and Elsie Nanji. It had a sassy headline “Who needs phoren?”
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