Progressive replies to our campaigners emails
Published: 2009-03-31 By: Gwilym Griffith-JonesCampaign: GetReal - Stop Free Plastic Bags Campaign Report
Category: Follow Ups
The only way we are going to overcome the problems we face is through engaging with each other. So we were stoked to see this morning that Progressive has been replying to people emailing them their opinions on a mandatory levy on plastic bags.
Unfortunately the reply seems to be more fiddle faddle:
In 2004, we agreed along with two other leading retailers, to trim our use of plastic bags by 20% by June 2009.
We all want to reduce the number of plastic bags in the environment, and we continue to make good progress towards this goal.
Great. So by "good progress" we could expect since 2004 (it's 5 years!)they would have executed a plan to reduce bags, achieved their 20% target and have a good strategy to get them on the way to an 80-90% reduction like the Irish?
No, through their inability to admit their failure it looks like they are denying progress of any meaningful sort is possible. The 'Progressive' future looks like more uninspired feeble initiatives which anybody with a web browser could find out are doomed to fail. We are not leading the globe in plastic bag reduction.
We are continuing to do our utmost to get everyone behind us to reduce plastic bag usage even further. Other initiatives of note that we have in place include:
- The company is an active participant in the Packaging Accord's Make A Difference campaign, which launched in July 2007. The campaign asks people to take one less plastic bag every time they shop
- Pack 7 - we train our checkout staff to pack at least 7 items into each plastic bag whenever possible, and to ask whether customers want a bag if they have purchased three items or less.
- We offer a range of re-usable eco-bags and encourage customers to use them instead of plastic bags.
All great initiatives, but like Dr Nick Smith has said "When things are free, people tend to overuse them"... come on Progressive surf the web, read some articles, do some research. The best way to achieve your stated goals is to charge for the bags.