Environmental Issue: Plastic Bag vs Reusable Bag
S.W.O.T Analysis Report
March 4, 2013
In this report, we have performed S.W.O.T analysis for two environmental campaigns: “Ban the
Bag”, and “Reuse this Bag”. We have researched on the historical social trend for plastic bag ban,
analyzed S.W.O.T for the two campaigns, and provided recommendations based on the analysis.
Background
Plastic bags were first introduced in 1977, however, plastic bag became a global issue because
bags are made from polyethylene and they are nonrenewable resources. According to the EPA,
between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Every hour,
approximately 200,000 plastic bags are being transferred to the land filled and may take a long
process of up to 1,000 years to break down. Plastic bags are not only harmful for human but also
the wildlife and waterways. Plastic pollution travels through local waterways and goes to the
ocean. On average 46,000 pieces of plastics floats in every square mile of the ocean and create a
threat to the sea animals.
As in 2010, it is estimated that nearly 238 billion plastic bags have been consumed. Many cities
had raised the potential awareness of plastic bags and encourage the use of reusable bags.
Campaigns such as Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) in 2010, the purpose of these campaigns is to
encourage consumers to bring your own reusable bags rather than using single use plastic or
paper bags.
One successful environmental campaign include the Earth Day, during the Earth day week,
communities celebrate the week focusing on environmental issues. One of the issues they
reinforce is the use of plastic bags, and the promotion of reusable bags. Some retail stores would
promote reusable bags during specific week. For example, as on April 22, 2012, Target had given
away one free reusable bag per guest.
Benefits of Reusable Bags:
· Minimize the quantity of waste
· Minimize the burdens in wildlife and waterways
· Protect the earth by minimizing toxic pollution and contamination
· Increase the quality of our ecosystem
· Made from eco-friendly materials so it is less harmful to the environment
Strengths
Firstly, there are already existing campaigns on environmental issues and specifically targeting
plastic bags. A strategy used to minimize the use of plastic bags is to replace plastic bags with
reusable bags. Reusable bags are well designed at a minimal cost for longer use of durability,
convenience, and for environmental protection. In addition, the plastic campaigns are very
developed around the country and the mass media. Some successful ones include the putting a
charge on the bag or “Ban the Bag” at checkout counters. “Ban the Bag”, the campaign goal was
to apply the plastic bag ban to all retailers in the city and require consumer to pay 5 cent on paper
bags to encourage the use of reusable bags. The cities that enforced this law include Honolulu,
San Francisco, and Portland.
Secondly, environmental issues are well educated in schools and churches. Schools and churches
bring the potential awareness of environmental issue by fundraising. School does it by
cooperating with parents and students to help sell the bags and encourage the use of reusable
bags. An example would be Urbana High School Choral Fundraising, students takes the reusable
bag orders from family, friends, and coworkers to expand the words of going green. Also,
churches use reusable bags as a good source for fundraising to increase the budget while
promoting eco-friendly.
Furthermore, another environmental strategy is creating strong visual influences, such as rallies,
pictures of the current issue, and reaching out for social media to raise a voice to bring upon
public awareness. The purpose of rallies is to raise a voice against plastic. This was done by
blogging among the online media by spreading the words and make commons. “Plastic bag
monster” was another technique used in rally to threat the cities to take an action before the
monster dominates the environment.
Weakness
First of all, most ban plastic bags campaigns have done diverse activities all around the nation to
gain potential awareness of current situation and problems about the plastic bags use. However,
it seems like campaigns rarely posted any further news about how their activities affect
participants and whether knowledge that participants learned from the campaigns have changed
their daily life. They have not presented the effective influence of their actions to the audience,
which is hard to convince people follow their steps.
In addition, some of campaigns, such as Reuse This Bag campaign, have launched their own
reuse bags to the markets. Most of these reuse bags are in single color and boring design of few
words, a logo or a picture, which make the bag undesirable and unfeatured. Lacking of style and
design, the bags are not attractive enough for people to carry around. It also causes problems for
producers to open marketing channels, which form a barrier for promoting the ban plastic bags
campaigns.
Moreover, the disadvantages of reusable bags have been discussed to against campaigns. Since
the feature of reusing, the sanitation problem has become an essential concern. Plastic bag
supporters point out that reusable bags may contain some bacteria through packing different
kinds of groceries and foods. And there is no single campaign has ever introduced the idea of
keeping the reusable bags clean. Lacking of awareness of how to take care of the bags is an
undeniable weakness.
Opportunities
Currently, environmental issues are discussed frequently all around the world. People in different
nations and backgrounds are now paying more attention to environmental issues and starting
making personal actions to protect environment. Governments have already established
significant policies for protecting the environment and environment organizations have been
promoted to the mainstreams. In current political and media environment, ban plastics bags and
promote reusable bag campaigns will gain more attention and pass more efficient influence to
audience. At the same time, products of using less resource and producing fewer pollutants
become popular, which will definitely drive the demand of reusable bags.
In addition, the campaign can reach out by cooperating with local business, such as State Farm or
TCF bank. As we known, once you open an account with TCF bank or sign insurance with State
Farm, you would receive some souvenirs such as a bag and a t-shirt with the companies’ logo.
The campaign could cooperate with these companies by supplying reusable bags with companies’
icons on it, which encourage people use more reusable bags and is a significant method for fund
raising. Also this partnership could be developed with local markets or grocery stores and school
organizations like sororities and fraternities.
Nowadays, customized products become popular and desirable. The campaign can launch
customized reusable bags by creating customizing feature on their own website or corporate with
current customizing website such as Zazzle. With personal features added, the audiences are
more willing to carry the bags around and introduce them to their friends.
Threats
First, the uniqueness of US legal system makes it difficult for plastic bag ban to enter the law as
what has happened in other countries. Only a few cities have banned or imposed tax on plastic
bags. Thus campaigns have limited power to promote plastic bag ban on a large scale to make
everyone voluntarily not using plastic bags.
Second, the multi-billion dollar plastic bag industry including manufacturers and oil companies
as raw material suppliers is opposed to the plastic bag ban because they will possibly suffer
significant reduction in production levels and sales if these campaigns run successfully. These
companies frequently sponsor local campaigns to against plastic bag bans or fees in order to
maintain their businesses and profits.
Third, the existed reusable bags in current market have many downsides. Most of the reusable
bags are more expensive to produce and sold at higher prices rather than plastic bags. But some
of the bags are not durable, not water resistant, or wears out quickly. Some of the raw materials
making these bags such as cotton and jute require huge amounts of pesticides, which pollute soils
and water. On the other hand, few cities recycle the reusable bags and many reusable bags are
not biodegradable, which harms the environment in the same way as those plastic bags.
Conclusions
Current campaigns advocating for plastic bag bans are very effective in using strong visual
impacts and various channels to raise public awareness of the extensive usage of plastic bags and
the harms of plastic bags to the environment. However, these campaigns do not follow up on
each participant’s change in behavior, promote poor-designed reusable bags and rarely educate
about how to use and take care of those bags.
In the future, these campaigns can improve the design of reusable bags and make them more
desirable, and provide instructions for use. They can also reach out to corporate with local
supermarkets and companies to promote the distribution of reusable bags to local residents. By
tracking participants’ change in behavior after each activity, these campaigns can evaluate their
effectiveness and better design future activities. Even though the plastic bag bill has been vetoed
and the plastic bag industry is strongly against the ban, people in the campaigns should still make
efforts in making plastic bag ban a policy to be enforced through the government, which is
considered to be the most effective way to ban plastic bags and promote reusable bags.