I’m not a plastic bag - believe the hype?

As designer eco-friendly carrier bags hit the high street, Najiba Abdellaoui asks if it is all just a load of hype.

You get a load of hype, bags that are sold out within an hour, a revenue of £100,000 and copies that are sold for up to £200 on eBay. Despite the hype among bag groupies of course it’s a good thing that this campaign has brought practical environmentally-friendly behaviour to the public’s attention. Living an environmentally-friendly life is far more important than owning this particular fashion item.

What do you get when a non-profit campaign group, We Are What We Do, asks top bag designer Anya Hindmarch, a.k.a. queen of bag land, to design a cotton bag that will discourage the use of plastic bags that damage the environment? You get a nice cotton grocery bag that says ‘I’m not a plastic bag’ – which has been made in China.

What do you get if the campaign group and the designer then decide to produce only a limited number of 20,000 - to make the bag exclusive and protect the up-market brand of the designer – and agree to sell them for £5 each at selected Sainsbury’s stores? You get a load of hype, bags that are sold out within an hour, a revenue of £100,000 and copies that are sold for up to £200 on eBay.

The question, however, is whether the lucky buyers and unlucky bidders really understand what the bag stands for and says, besides ‘I’m not a plastic bag’. It could be that the bag owners simply wanted an original Anya Hindmarch, which are normally sold for up to £1,000. It’s also not impossible to believe that a large majority of the 20,000 bags will not be used, because they are too precious to use for everyday groceries.

Despite the hype among bag groupies of course it’s a good thing that this campaign has brought practical environmentally-friendly behaviour to the public’s attention. But the point is, if you get the message - that it’s far better for the environment to use a sustainable bag instead of numerous plastic bags - you really don’t need an Anya Hindmarch to do that. You could make your own bag, saying ‘I am not an I’m not a plastic bag’ or organise ethical bag-making parties with your friends using old fabrics. It’s all about consulting your creativity and imagination.

That’s what teams of marketing whizz kids do when they design all kinds of cool campaigns that use the tools of the consumer society we live in to ‘sell’ us environmentally friendly products and attitudes; they consult their creativity and come up with a must-have item or must-do action that according to them will turn you into this fabulous eco-friendly, must-be person.

When confronted with such dazzling campaigns it’s important to believe the hype – or at least the message behind it – without getting carried away by it. In the end, living an environmentally-friendly life is far more important than owning this particular fashion item.