treehugger.com — Starting March 15, all IKEA stores in the US will charge a nickel per plastic bag in an effort to get people to haul their Swedish Fish and affordable housewares out of the store in reusable bags and cut down on plastic bag waste. IKEA projects that they'll cut plastic bag use by at least 50%, from 70 million bags a year down to 35 million bags.
Feb 20, 2007 View in Crawl 4
marleysmFeb 20, 2007
about damn time!!!!!! Other stores should have atleast a recycling center for old ones too. No food store have them execpt whole foods
bbearFeb 21, 2007
Huh? The people who came up with this are probably the members of some small department in Ikea that pays a slightly better than crappy wage. What are you talking about?
snottsdaleazFeb 21, 2007
..nevermind. I'm in the wrong reply area and I can't get out
bewing77Feb 21, 2007
Iv'e done this all my life in every single grocery store (except for the two years I lived in the US). It's not really that hard to "guesstimate" the number of bags you need, and if you occasionally miscalculate you just hand over a nickle and grab another bag. And what's with the "crap getting mixed up"? Over here, every cash register has two "lanes" so that the next customers stuff goes in the other lane and by the time the customer after that's stuff is starting to com through I'm done packing. Or more usually, I let my wife pack while I unload from the cart and pay... It just doesn't seem like that big of a problem for a person with rudimentary logistics skills.
jercraigsFeb 21, 2007
Thats only remotely true if you fail to account for the social and environmental costs of a product.
slimnickyyFeb 21, 2007
That's how it is in the UK. Deal with it. You could take your own bags don't forget. Just stuff old grocery bags somewhere and take them with you to IKEA or whatever and stop bitching.
5hop4orceFeb 21, 2007
To everyone commenting that skeptics should read the article and that proceeds will go to charity:Look, man, you're a sucker. Okay? You're a chump.Let's say I have $100. $10 of that is going to go to charity anyway, because I get a tax break. Then I enact some brazen scheme to rip people off for $10. I take that $10 in greedy profits and donate it to charity. Then I declare that my actions were motivated solely by a desire to give to charity. What have I done? I've shuffled some money around and made $10 more in profits.You should know about this scam, because the federal government does it all the time with so-called "earmarked" funds. They justify some outrageous new tax by saying the funds will be "earmarked" for some good cause, like f**king saving some babies. In reality, no new money is going anywhere--except in the pockets of the greedy.
rajulkabirFeb 22, 2007
Most of the IKEA stuff I've seen falling apart was because the person who assembled it didn't tighten properly. Fasteners should be very tight, but not so tight that they damage the wood. If they are loose, then they will wiggle around with use and gradually become looser until they no longer hold well.
arminpittMar 28, 2007
whatever man, i heard you're a douche bag
lifelessplasticJan 4, 2008
Good point! Selling low quality furniture is environmentally irresponsible in it's own way. But I still applaud IKEA for charging for bags since it's easy and realistic for them to do. Obviously, changing their entire business model and the type of furniture they sell isn't going to change any time soon so at least they're make a step in the right direction.