Uniqlo to switch from plastic to paper bags worldwide from Sept.

"7,800 tons annually ", with just one company. What a big number! The potential to reduce plastic is infinite. Let's make efforts for our planet.

I admire Fast Retailing for their actions , but charging for the paper bags. Aren't wrappings or items carriers built into the price of an item. Everything you buy in a supermarket, comes in some form of a wrapper or container, which is included in the price. This seems like an almighty rip off from Fast Retailing, already they provide boxes to take all old Fast Retailing items for recycling or charitable endeavors. So come on Fast Retailing play the game , your profits are huge enough without price gouging your valued customers.

How about selling uniqlo-branded reusable bags and giving customers a small discount whenever they use it when purchasing more products? It seems like a good marketing strategy

yes, make the reusable cart the point card. simple enough to sew a barcode strip on to preserve data and shopping history.

I wish most companies here in Japan would switch to paper bags. They're 100% recyclable and Japan's forest industry could use the boost since it's been almost wiped out. Most of the plastic used in packaging is unnecessary.

Make those paper bags out of the blasted cedar trees on the Tokyo western mountains that rain down pollen every spring. Revenge!

I like the idea of a branded reusable garment bag. RFID chip the bag to make customer info and point retention/allocation simple, make it look a similar to the current bag with fasteners and go to market. The nine yen you would have been charged can be deducted from every garment purchased as a reward for using the bag. DON'T force customers to buy separate bags for different brands within the same corporate umbrella.

The last Uniqlo thing I bought, an airism cool undershirt came, in a plastic wrapper.

I rememeber when I was a kid nearly everything was packed in paper bags, even remember using paper straws, although the got soggy pretty quick.

Yay. Now handles will fall off as groceries smash on the ground...or no handles at all for an awkward carry.

Yes. Plastic is bad. Let's make doctors gloves and medical equipment out of paper too.

If you do the research, using paper is not more ecologically sustainable or benign. Neither are polyurethane bags or fabric bags.

Things--especially in Japan--also come in plastic wrappers because it is considered more sanitary and tidier. Who wants to buy things that others have groped through?

Forget Uniqlo, I want to know what's to be done with hundreds of millions of individually wrapped sembei? This monster will be very hard to slay.

Already done in Europe for Uniqlo (at least in France) due to law...

How about selling uniqlo-branded reusable bags and giving customers a small discount whenever they use it when purchasing more products?

> yes, make the reusable cart the point card.

Good ideas. Instead of the discount, the point card added to it seems more natural : something like you have a real card coming with some pin you fix on the bag. I will add : made the bag out of the unwanted clothes which are put in the recycle box. They can also get them made in Japan by people having difficulties accessing employment.

That should be better in term of image than the recycled paper bag. Moreover since people have to pay for it event though it is not to be reused and they never had to pay for the plastic ones. It kind of make them look cheap.

And so that, they do not waste their paper bag, they can just sell it as back up if needed (sometimes people forget their bag). And use them to put their heattech, airsim and so and so ... products. I do not get why do they need research do find an alternative to plastic. Do they really expect people to put their cloth back in it after each washing, is the quality so low that the product if not in a plastic bag will deteriorate, ... And to be more ecofriendly do not forget rice glue or the like to fix the packaging.

Tokyo-m:

Was being a bit sarcastic there. My point is that we should be looking forward, not backwards. Vehicles pollute, but instead of saying "let's go back to horse and buggy", they introduced unleaded fuel, scrubbers, hybrids, and fully electric vehicles. For bags, there is fast biodegradable plastic available.

So, if I buy a pair of pants at Uniqlo, how will they be covered? I hope you’re not going to tell me in a paper bag. I hope you’re not going to tell me not covered at all.

The people skeptical about not using plastic wrappers and bags I don't think were alive pre-80s. Yeah, we had plastic around products back then but way, way less. And it was perfectly fine to have things bagged and wrapped in paper/wax paper. No problem.

We don't need to eradicate plastic usage completely; just reduce it. The older people on this board lived in a world where we used a hell of a lot less plastic and it wasn't all that inconvenient.

Before online dating you'd be walking home awkwardly carrying your paper bag full of groceries when it suddenly breaks open from the bottom and all your oranges roll out onto the street. But then this charming person picks them all up and hands them to you. You look in each others eyes and there's a spark. Before you know it you are happily married. Oh bring back the days of the paper bag

Where I’m from some thieving little sod would have made off with those oranges before they hit the deck.

Two paper bags.

A good example for all industries and all countries. May there be many, many more companies and countries to follow. But most important may all people recognize the hazzard and start making a difference by recycling and reduce the use of disposable plastics.