Are Plastic Ziploc Bags Suddenly Green or Greenwashed?

Every year I visit the San Francisco Green Festival and wander up and down the aisles of vendor booths, looking for interesting plastic-free products but always finding a ton of plastic packaging. Organic foods packaged in plastic. Natural drinks in plastic bottles. Compostable products shrink-wrapped in plastic. But this year, my jaw hit the floor when I stumbled across a booth I’d never have expected to see at the Green Festival: Ziploc.
Why would a brand of plastic bags have a booth at the Green Festival? Because they have partnered with Recyclebank to reward people who pledge to take back their Ziploc bags to grocery store recycle bins to be recycled. Notice: Ziploc is not actually taking back the bags. They are rewarding people who go to the Ziploc page on the Recyclebank website, enter a code from the Ziploc box, and promise to take the bags back to the store.
What happens to plastic bags that are returned to grocery… Read the rest