Last March 2007, IKEA set a goal of reducing its US stores’ plastic bag consumption by 50%; from 70 million to 35 million plastic bags within 1 year. The goal was to go reusable with the iconic IKEA blue bag for $.59 or use an alternative reusable bag. IKEA also said if that was not an acceptable solution, IKEA plastic bags could be purchased for $.05, with all proceeds going to American Forests (the nation’s oldest non-profit citizens conservation organization) to plant trees to restore forests and help reduce CO2 emissions.

Well, it seems their ‘Ban the Bag’ program was such a success, with more than 92% of their customers saying no more plastic bags, that IKEA will be taking another green step forward: as of October 1, 2008, IKEA will no longer offer plastic OR paper bags. IKEA’s consumer call-to-action is to use only reusable bags.

From the $.05 donations they received for every plastic throw-away bag that was used, American Forests will plant over 300,000 trees!

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. consumes over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps each year. Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags, and less than one percent of them are recycled. Single-use bags made of high-density polyethylene are the main culprit. Once brought into existence to tote purchases, they will accumulate and persist on our planet for up to a thousand years. Paper bags are also not the best alternative: stacking 10 pallets of paper bags is equivalent to one pallet of plastic, thus increasing the CO2 footprint. And it takes 14 billion trees to produce 10 billion grocery bags.

Go IKEA – let’s thank them and encourage other companies to do the same and GO GREEN!