In a bid to stop the plastic menace, a supermarket in Canada has decided to publicly shame customers who choose to carry a single use plastic bag.?
The East West market is an Independent store located in Vancouver and it only sells organic and fair trade produce.
They have devised a hilarious way to break this vicious circle of plastic use, customers who demand a plastic bag will only get those with some really embarrassing quotes written on it.?
The plastic bags say things like 'Into The Weird Adult Video Emporium' and 'The Colon Care Co-op', and most would find it incredibly humiliating to carry around a bag with those kind of things written.
Speaking to Global News,owner of East West Market David Lee Kwen said, "The message is, we should make a conscious effort to save our planet one step at a time. Plastic bags are a big problem, and every step helps."
In their Facebook page the East West Market, a caption reads, 'It¡¯s hard to always remember a reusable bag. We redesigned our plastic bags to help you never forget again.'
Kwen has said that some customers are now buying the bags not to carry things but to keep it as a fun novelty item.?
"It¡¯s certainly generated interest in what we¡¯re trying to put out. Once you start a conversation, it will skyrocket from there, I think," he added.
The Global News reports that printing the special bags is an added expenditure for the market, but as long as the message of stopping plastic use goes through, they aren't going to stop.
In a similar unique initiative to beat the plastic pollution crisis,?a school in Guwahati took up the initiative to receive fee from students in the form of discarded plastic items.
Mazin Mukhtar and Parmita Sarma opened the school in 2016 with aim to help the downtrodden section of the society and to promote the importance of environmental protection.
The children deposit at least 10 to 20 plastic items per week, with a pledge to not burn plastic.
Reuters
In another instance, a Thailand supermarket uses banana leaves for packaging, instead of plastic.
The leaves are used to hold together bunches of vegetables, with a flexible piece of bamboo tied to keep everything in place.? These methods may not be enough to fight problem in it's?entirety, but is certainly a step in the right direction.?
The use of plastic products dominates our daily lives, it's an easy-go-grab option which we don't thick about twice, despite the way it has been harming our environment.
However this 'glorious' item you think is 'easy' is actually murdering a number of animals, birds and marine life. A large chunk of the discarded plastic items end up in the oceans. And all this because of our convenience!?
It's high time we stopped and took a conscious effort to opt for sustainable alternatives.?