Beyond the Plastic Bag looks to revolutionize the single-use carrier bag in the US

19 Sep 2022 --- Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy and the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag partnered with large US retailers to test out its new Beyond the Plastic Bag. The bag is reusable and provided by retailers for customers to grab instead of single-use plastic bags.

The bags were tested at select CVS Health, Target and Walmart stores throughout Northern California in 2021. The test was conducted in nine stores and five cities for six to ten weeks. The trial aimed to guide retailers on how the reusable and returnable bags would function. 

According to the report, one hundred billion single-use plastic bags are used each year in the US, most of which end up as waste in landfills and the environment. Beyond the Plastic Bag was created to reduce this number and encourage buyers to transition to reusable bags when shopping. 

“This collaboration with the nation’s largest retailers to test and pilot reusable bag solutions across multiple stores is a critical step toward reducing single-use plastic bag waste,” says Kate Daly, managing director of the center for the circular economy at Closed Loop Partners.

The program focused on building awareness of the products and the issues associated with single-use plastic bags, consumers adopting the idea and signing up, and consumers using the bags before returning them to drop-off points inside the stores. 

Major US retailers partner to test reusable bag methods to combat single-use plastic bags. US policy
Eleven states currently have guidelines regarding single-use plastic bags: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. They have banned the use of the bags due to their negative environmental impacts. 

However, some states have been adverse to banning single-use plastic bags. When environmental activists have pleaded to states to restrict plastic bag use in stores, they have called upon a 1993 law that prevented cities or counties from banning a container or package. 

For example, the Texas Supreme court cited the law and ruled that banning single-use plastics was illegal. This caused 11 local Texas bag bans to be overruled. 

This law is in place to protect plastic manufacturers and keep the money in those respective businesses circulating. 

Bagging Customers
The Consortium hopes they will implement their model in the states where bans on plastic bags remain. 

The Consortium was launched in 2020 to assemble some of the largest retailers to identify, test and implement the proposed solution to single-use plastic in shops.

Discounts are offered to those that sign up for the program and use one of the Beyond the Plastic Bags. It was found that 53% of customers said the discount was the primary motivator. 

The report discovered that most shoppers who forget a reusable bag start thinking about bags as they approach checkout. Checkout is a challenging time to educate as people are often in a rush to leave and do not want to be informed about the world plastic crisis. However, it is the moment when reusable offerings are most needed, says the consortium. Beyond a Plastic Bag researches customer response to reusable bags over single-use plastic. 

“Through partnerships with innovative startups, collaboration with other partners, and buy-in from our customers, the Beyond the Bag Pilots provided critical data-driven analysis on the role that reuse models could play in plastic waste mitigation when thoughtfully designed and their impact successfully measured,” claims Sheryl Burke, senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility for CVS Health. 

Potential Problems
Other than discounts, the other significant factors that drive consumers to use reusable bags are environmental impact and design. 

Both of these factors need to be addressed in future implementations. As mentioned above, educating consumers on the environmental impacts of plastic bags is challenging as many disregard it based on time and convenience. On top of that, the current style of the bags’ does not give the design impact desired by buyers. 

It is also important to remember that solutions may not be uniform for all areas of the US. For instance, suburban needs where people drive may differ from an urban setting where walking or using public transportation is more common. 

Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag says they “will continue to conduct extensive research and in-market testing of designs and innovative bag solutions that can reduce single-use plastic bag waste.”

“We’re grateful for the insights these pilots have provided, and we’re applying what we learned to identify bag options that are best for our guests, propelling more circular systems throughout retail,” states Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of corporate responsibility for Target and president of the Target Foundation.

By Sabine Waldeck