It’s not just New York bodegas anymore—reusable bags are making their way to big-box retailers.
An array of models will hit nine northern California-based Target, Walmart, and CVS locations this summer—the next phase for the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, an industry effort to cut plastic bag waste. The six-week test period will run through early fall.
- It will include pilots of reusable delivery bags and “enabling technologies” that collect data on customer use and recycling habits.
- The initiative is also looking to Goatote, a kiosk that distributes reusable bags, and a 99Bridges program that incentivizes sustainable consumption, as two other tech “solutions.”
An easy way in: According to Retail Brew’s survey with Harris Poll last month, reusable totes are the way most Americans (52%) shop sustainably. “Consumers will always choose the path of least resistance” on environmental efforts, Katie Thomas of the Kearney Consumer Institute recently told us.
“We think a lot about how to change behavior rather than try to tap into existing behavior. It really comes down to closing some of those gaps and putting it less on the consumer to have to make the decision, when really it's supposed to be a corporate initiative.”
- Walmart, Target, and CVS—founding members of the Consortium—have already shelled out $15 million on the effort.—JG
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