Here are my friend Nancy, a poor seagull, and I at the Oakland plastic bag ban press conference on the steps of City Hall this morning. (I’ve got to do something about my hair soon! I’m starting to look like one of the Partridge Family boys.) It was a beautiful, sunny day: a reprieve from all the rain we’ve been having.
You can watch ABC 7′s disappointing (in my opinion) coverage of the press conference here: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/media?id=5919632. They really seem to focus on the plastics industry’s arguments against the ban rather than on promoters’ arguments for it. And reusable bags barely get mentioned at all. Oh well.
On the bright side, businesses such as Whole Foods and City Car Share had representatives who spoke in favor of the ban today. Whole Foods, as you’ve probably already heard, is set to eliminate plastic bags in all of its stores by Earth Day this year.
And City Car Share has begun including reusable bags in all of its cars as a service to members. What a great idea! Unfortunately, I belong to Zipcar, not City Car Share, so I sent them an email suggesting they also provide bags. Here are my email and their prompt response:
Sent: Jan 26, 2008, at 02:31 AM
To: info@zipcar.com
From: Beth Terry
Subject: Reusable bags in ZipCars?
Dear Zipcar:
I just read that City Car Share is now including reusable shopping bags in each of its cars to encourage members to bring their own bags while shopping rathering than using disposable paper or plastic bags. Here is a link to the article:
http://www.citycarshare.org/newsletters/2007-10/
As a Zipcar member, I would truly appreciate if Zipcar could follow suit and provide a couple of reusable cloth bags in each of its cars.
Reusable bags are not expensive and imprinted with the Zipcar logo, would be a great advertising tool for the company. And providing the bags would be a real service to your members, helping to alleviate the problem of folks forgetting to bring their bags to the store with them.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this suggestion.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Terry
From: “Zipcar Member Services” info@zipcar.com
Subject: Re: Reusable bags in ZipCars?
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:43:37 GMT
Dear Elizabeth,
Thanks for writing. That is a great idea Elizabeth. Although we cannot act on every suggestion immediately, perhaps you will see this same feature in our vehicles soon.
As you said, it would be convenient for those members that are doing errands and shopping and it also helps the environment as well. Please let us know if you have any other ideas Elizabeth.
Regards,
Sluaghan
Zipcar Member Services
members visit www.zipcar.com/help
or nonmembers www.zipcar.com/how
PS. Members are also able to submit web inquiries from the “Help” page
via the “Contact Us” screen http://www.zipcar.com/help/contact
If you’re a Zipcar member, please use the above links to send a quick email requesting they stock reusable bags in their cars for members to use while grocery shopping. And if you’re a City Car Share member, why not send City Car Share a letter thanking them for providing the service?
