After a hard year, retailers all across the country are back open and ready to resume everyday life. They are back and ready to continue to go green with new great merchandise. When it comes to packaging, brands have made significant efforts to improve their environmental impact. As Earth month continues, retailers are also keeping the benefits of reusable and recyclable packaging in mind. As a result of making greener choices, more customers are also returning to shop in stores. As shopping online is a great alternative, additional fuel costs and non-recyclable mailers can have an impact on the environment.
Go Green: PCW Paper Shopping Bags
To reduce their carbon footprint, many brands are creating their paper shopping bags out of paper made from post-consumer waste. Many companies already create their paper shopping bags with a certain percentage of post-consumer waste. When designing a paper shopping bag, it is important to consider the type of papers for the project. There is a variety to choose from: bleach kraft, brown kraft, recyclable, and paper materials with post-consumer waste. The materials alone will create a stylish, yet environmentally conscious shopping bag.
The materials you use may have an influence from bag ban laws in your city. As bag bans spread nationwide, the standard for a paper shopping bag to be compliant is 40% pcw. Constructing shopping bags with a certain percentage of post-consumer waste is mandatory. However, most rules may vary from region to region.
If you are in a bag ban area, it’s important to avoid treatments like lamination and less eco-friendly papers. Using environmentally friendly papers such as brown kraft or recyclable paper will significantly reduce your impact on the environment. When you avoid lamination, the bags become recyclable. Although, some bags require the removal of handles or to be broken down to consider them recyclable.
Your shopping bags can have a label to signify whether the bag is recyclable or has post-consumer content. To show that a bag complies with current bag ban laws, we can help design a shopper with a message stating the percentage of pcw. When creating your bags, you can write this pcw claim to let clients know you care about the environment. The perfect label to have for returning customers.
Reusable Shopping Bags
Some other benefits of returning to in-store shopping is receiving your purchases in a reusable shopping bag. Due to the many bag ban laws in effect across the country, many retailers are making the switch from non-recyclable plastic to reusable. The environmental impact, cost-effectiveness and durability of reusable shopping bags make it easier for customers to go green. As a result, reusable shopping bags offer incredible benefits to customers.
When brands create their reusable shopping bags, their first focus is usability and of course design. They want their bags to stand out to customers as well as hold their products with ease. From construction materials, pockets and inserts to popular handles, these are all decisions to make based on how customers use their reusable shopping bags. Some popular materials to think about are: pp woven, pp non-woven, cotton, jute and RPET.
Reusable shopping bags make the perfect alternative for customers who are trying to go green when shopping in-stores. The bags are versatile when it comes to size and construction and can hold any type of product. For example, reusable bags can range from a simple foldable tote to a large Ikea style shopper. Both constructions and everything in between can fit a wide range of products from apparel and accessories to larger sized items. The convenient constructions can fold up for easy storage.
Go Green for the Environment
Offering eco-friendly packaging is an ideal way to make a statement about your company’s green initiative. Customers looking to go green will love reusable and recyclable packaging that makes a strong statement about reusing and recycling shopping bags. As a bonus, custom branding on your paper and reusable shopping bags are perfect for your company and customers as they act as mobile billboards.
