Green bags: Profitable, earth friendly

Agnes Winarti ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 09/04/2008 10:14 AM  |  City

For the past several years, retailers in Jakarta have begun joining the movement to reduce the use of plastic bags by offering customers environmentally friendly alternatives.

While remaining committed to the green cause, some acknowledged the business potential of selling green bags didn't hurt.

"There is certainly some profit to be made in selling the bags, especially in maintaining our image as the only bookstore that cares for the environment," Aksara bookstore manager, Ade Koeswani, told The Jakarta Post recently.

Since May of last year, the Aksara branch in Kemang, South Jakarta, has sold more than 1,000 canvas tote bags. Aksara has two other locations, at the Cilandak Town Square in South Jakarta and at Plaza Indonesia in Central Jakarta.

"We've renewed the design of our canvas bags six times. It's sold out all the time. We sell up to 84 bags a week," Ade said. Her store charged Rp 10,000 (US$1.1) a bag for the tote's first incarnation, moving up to Rp 30,000 during the next design cycle, she added.

The current price of Aksara's newly designed canvas bag is Rp 18,000.

"Customers usually buy the bags based on brand recognition.

"Students buy them because they're trendy," Ade said, adding "The canvas tote is optional, though, because our store also provides free biodegradable plastic bags, made from cassava."

Representatives of the Body Shop Indonesia, which has reduced plastic use since 2007 in its 26 stores around the capital and 51 stores nationwide, acknowledged the green movement is picking up steam among the public.

"However, there's still a false impression among our customers, namely that of *prestige'.

"Many of them still ask for our biodegradable plastic bags, but our main goal is to actually reduce plastic use," head of marketing communications at the Body Shop Indonesia, Amanda Ajikarisma, said Thursday.

Body Shop stores in Jakarta have distributed over 10,000 biodegradable plastic bags to customers since 2007.

"It's important to have well-informed staff to consistently remind customers what our main goal is," Amanda added.

"However, we have to view it (customers' behavior) as part of the evolution toward doing something better for the environment," she said.

Since the end of last year, hypermarket Carrefour's 41 branches nationwide have also offered reusable plastic shopping bags for Rp 2,000 a piece, as well as reusable cloth shopping bags for Rp 10,000.

"We have sold over a million shopping bags and the figures keep rising," said Carrefour's corporate affairs director, Irawan D. Kadarman.

When asked whether the sale of green plastic and cloth bags was profitable for the company, Irawan replied, "We don't look at it from an economic perspective."

Proceeds from the sale of bags does not go toward donations, he said.

"No, but a portion of the sales is currently used for re-stockpiling the bags.

"We're mainly focused on reducing the use of plastic bags," he added, acknowledging the majority of the more than one million green shopping bags sold were plastic.

"We should reduce the use of our regular plastic bags, but we cannot share that figure at this time."

The plastic bags currently sold at Carrefour do not contain any environmentally friendly ingredients, he added.

"It's pure plastic...but has more durability, which is why it can be used several times," he added.

Some customers criticize the retailer's green principles as camouflage for a profit-making scheme.

"What good does it do the environment if they replace regular plastic with some other form of plastic?" said Wicaksono, a customer at the Carrefour in Buaran, East Jakarta.

"I personally doubt Carrefour's genuine in its concern for the environment if they keep selling reusable plastic bags to supposedly reduce regular plastic," Wicaksono told The Jakarta Post recently.

A working mother of two, Meta, shared a similar sentiment.

"Why should I buy plastic bags if I can get them for free? Besides, the bags sold are not even biodegradable."

The Body Shop Indonesia said it had recently increased its green efforts by using recycled paper bags made from previously biodegradable plastic bags.

The store has also sold more than 1,300 organic cotton shopping bags since 2007. The Body Shop's Amanda said both the paper and cotton bags were imported directly from the U.K.

"We're still looking for a supplier here that can provide cotton bags that meet our standard," she added, acknowledging the travel costs and fuel consumption involved in importing the products could be seen as contradicting environmental conservation efforts.

Proceeds from the sale of cotton bags were donated to the Children on The Edge Foundation, which helps educate children across the world, including in Aceh, East Timor and Burma, Amanda said.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.