According to Treehugger, IKEA will be charging $.05 for each plastic bag starting March 15 in an effort to encourage environmentally responsible behavior. IKEA will also be reducing the price of their re-usable blue shopping bags (also known as the greatest laundry bag ever) to $.59 from $.99. From Treehugger:

Proceeds of up to $1.75 million (that’s a whole lot of bags) from the bag campaign will go to American Forests, the nation’s oldest non-profit citizens conservation organization, to plant trees to restore forests and offset CO2 emissions,..IKEA projects that the number of plastic bags used by their U.S. customers will be reduced by at least 50% from 70 million to 35 million in the first year. This program was launched in IKEA stores in the UK in late Spring 2006, and reduction has been an impressive 95 percent.

The program was very popular in the UK, and we love those IKEA shopping bags, so we’re all for it. We imagine, however, that a lot of people won’t be.—MEGHANN MARCO

IKEA US to ‘Bag The Plastic Bag’ [Treehugger]
(Photo: pdxsurreal)

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