One can no longer imagine a world without shopping bags. Everything is finally packed in paper or plastic bags. South African shops hand out about 8 billion lightweight, single-use plastic bags per year. Until 2002 they were free of charge, but due to the extensive use of these bags, an urgent waste problem arose and you now have to purchase them for a small amount.
This lead me to pose the following research question: What are the factors that do or would motivate
residents of Sea Point to regularly make use of reusable shopping bags? Are people aware of the environmental hazards posed by the consumption of plastic and paper bags?
Woolworths Holdings Limited (WHL) is a South African-based retail group chain and caters to the wealthiest South African consumers. Even though Woolworths is trying to help customers understand the impacts of using plastic bags and rather using a reusable bag, the study showed that not many people bring their own reusable bag to go shopping at Woolworths.
The aim is to make eco-friendly behaviour incentivised, accessible and convenient. In the case of Woolworths, customers should be encouraged to stop using plastic bags and shift to use reusable bags, in order to improve their sustainability issues. Sadly there is still a gap between wanting to behave in an eco-friendly manner and actually behaving so.
The concept Wbetterlifebags:
Customer buy a betterlifebag and make a friend for life. Every time they swipe their bag, their friendship grows because money gets directly donated to the person who made the bag. Woolworths customer reuse the bag and improve lives and our environment. Every time a Woolworths customer reuses and swipes their betterlifebag at the till they donate 44 cents, which goes directly to the maker of the bag. Woolworths will round this up to 50 cents. The friend then receives a regular salary which allows her to send her children to school. Every betterlifebag has a story and carries the name of the seamstress who made it. The maker of the bag is a person who gets help from Rape Crisis Trust Cape Town – a local organisation that supports rape victims and their families. Online the customers can find out more about the person that made their bag. They have a window into their life, they are able to read their story before they got raped and learn of their journey of recovery.
