Plastic wrappers SPAR
Photo Credit: Pexels

SPAR Eastern Cape declared war on plastic bags back in April of this year. In just 5 months the store has sold 1.2 million fewer bags than last year.

 

By offering paper bags and encouraging consumers to make conscious choices when it comes to shopping, SPAR Eastern Cape has managed to drastically reduce their sales of plastic bags in store.

Their “Rethink the Bag” campaign has been featured all over social media. The paper bags have made many consumers very happy. An initial order of 300 000 paper shopping bags was placed to accommodate the demand within the first week of the new bag roll-out. These are wax-lined, waterproof reusable bags, capable of carrying 12kg.

The company hopes to totally eradicate the use of plastic bags within all their branches. The total number of stores in the Eastern Cape working towards this change includes 116 food stores and 131 liquor stores.

Here is a scary statistic, in 2017 the Eastern Cape branches alone, sold 101 million plastic bags. In a previous story, the SPAR EC managing director Conrad Isaac said they could no longer ignore their accountability in what was becoming an increasingly harmful situation in the world.

“We believe that safeguarding our environment and the future are often spoken about but not much is done,” he said.

“As the biggest food retailer in the Eastern Cape, I believe we have to take care of the health and wellbeing of the communities in which we operate.”

“If we carry on in this way and don’t do something about the mess we are creating it can only lead to the eventual destruction of our environment.

“So the dream is to clean up the place and to work towards creating a healthy and fresh environment in which we can live.”

For now, the focus is on removing plastic bags but the future hope is that all items in stores will be recyclable. SPAR Western Cape and Namibia have adopted similar campaigns such as the “no plastic, no problem” campaign.

The campaign encourages SPAR customers to take ownership of the problem and to stop using the conventional plastic shopping bag altogether.

In-store communications encourage shoppers to:

  • Bring your own shopping bag
  • Buy a SPAR brown paper bag
  • Buy a SPAR canvas bag
  • Carry your groceries to your car and pack into your boot
  • Only as a last option, buy a plastic bag – but please recycle responsibly

Sources: HeraldLIVE / GTG
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About the Author

Tyler Leigh Vivier is a writer for Good Things Guy.

Her passion is to spread good news across South Africa with a big focus on environmental issues, animal welfare and social upliftment. Outside of Good Things Guy, she is an avid reader and lover of tea.

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