another reason to love ikea

As an avid reusable bag user, I was thrilled to see that one of my favorite corporations, IKEA, has finally made the move to CHARGE people for using their disposable plastic bags! Yeah! So, if Costco and Sam's Club excludes bagging, why don't they just do the same at Walmart?? Or I say, "Charge everyone for plastic bags, everywhere!" It has been a regular practice of ours to always bring reusable bags into groceries, malls, etc. and to turn down bags for 1 or 2 items or if it can fit in a purse. I believe charging for plastic bags will change the way people think about plastic bags. As we mentioned before, you can get .05 off each bag you reuse at (most) grocery stores. We love the IKEA blue bags, btw! Read full article here.

Main points on the IKEA article:
- IKEA will charge US customers .05 for disposable plastic shopping bag.
- aims to reduce the est. 100 billion bags thrown away by all US consumers a year.
- IKEA is 1st retailer in the US to undertake such a program.
- Bangladesh outlawed plastic bags after they blocked drains and contributed to flooding and Taiwan uses 80 percent fewer bags after stores began charging for them.
- Bags add unnecessarily to landfills, clog drains and endanger wildlife.
- IKEA provides 70 million free bags to US customers; it expects to cut that by half in the first year.
- The company said it will also cut the price of their reusable blue bags from .99 to .59 to encourage their use. The program will begin on March 15 at the company's 29 US stores and the money from bag sales will go to American Forests, a conservation group.
- IKEA began charging its U.K. customers for plastic bags, reducing consumption by 95 percent!!!!
- The average US family of 4 throws away about 1,500 single-use polyethylene bags, which do not degrade for around 1,000 years. Less than 1% are recycled!