Ikea, the purveyor of cheap chic modern furniture and housewares, said today it will stop handing out disposable plastic carry bags in the U.S. in an effort to radically reduce the tens of millions of bags its customers send to landfills every year or that end up littering the landscape. Starting March 15, shoppers who insist on plastic bags to tote their designer kitchen gadgets to their cars will be charged 5 cents per bag. Ikea will donate the proceeds from the "Bag the Plastic Bag" initiative to non-profit green group American Forests to pay for tree planting. The company will encourage customers to buy its reusable Big Blue Bag and is cutting the bag’s price to 59 cents from 99 cents. "The amount of plastic bags we use and toss is overwhelming," Ikea said in a statement. "According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. consumes over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps each year. Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags, and less than 1 percent of them are recycled." Ikea said plastic bag use at its British stores has fallen 95 percent since the Swedish company introduced the program in the U.K. Ikea spokesperson Mona Astra Liss told Green Wombat the 5 cent charge represents the cost of producing a plastic bag. "We thought this was a fair price and a good hook into making a difference as we ease customers into thinking ‘reusable’ bags," she wrote in an e-mail. Ikea hopes the program will halve the 70 million bags its customers use annually in the U.S.
The Ikea program is notable in that it’s one of the few initiatives by a distributor of plastic bags itself to discourage their use and and to pass on at least some, if a tiny, part of the environmental cost of consumers’ "paper or plastic" habit.
Other attempts to cut down on plastic bags have been through bag taxes
like the one Ireland imposed – and which reduced bag use by 90
percent. The city of San Francisco in 2005 negotiated a deal with
Safeway (SWY) and other grocery store chains to voluntarily cut back on
the number of plastic bags they give out. But the agreement collapsed
after the stores refused to say how many bags they issued and then
lobbied to ban a bag tax.
Green Wombat 
Great idea. If a country like South-Africa can do it then Ikea and the rest of the world can do the same in helping the environment by saving the plastic bags from going to land fills. Reuse them.
They’ve charged for plastic bags in pretty much all stores in Sweden for decades, which is where IKEA is based.
The last big grocery chain(“Three Guys”) that charged for bags in our area was avoided like the plague and went bankrupt in 2 years.
We always return our used bags to the the store to recycle anyway.
Now if IKEA and all the other big boxes could eliminate all the styrofoam and packing materials from their lousy, ready to assemble junk furniture, I’d be REALLY impressed.
Or better yet. Restart the quality furniture manufacturing we used to have in America.
I think it’s great that they are charging for the plastic bags. I helps get everyone thinking about the finanical implications of pollution. This policy squarely places the cost options in the hand of the consumer.
While it may seem for some that Ikea is trying to eek a few more pennies out of us, the environmental goal is well intentioned. I offer a look at the book “Paper or Plastic” by Daniel Imhoff.
Concerning Mr. Lick’s remarks, biodegradable plastics are NOT recylcable. Instead, they are ONLY compostable – how many munipalities or homes compost? (Ans: not that many). You’ll still have to make new bags from scratch every time, you’re not saving ANY energy. If anything, biodegradable bags are an effort of Cargill-Dow to sell you more corn based products for their profit.
hope walmart will follow ikea
I don’t see how you could criticize this program, especially since all the proceeds go to an environmental group. I still think plastic bags are better than paper bags, if both are not reused, but the best environmental solution is to reuse the bags.
Plastic bags, paper bags inside plastic bags, multilayered bomb-proof plastic packaging, perplexing oversized boxes and bottles … get real America … stop wasting resources like there is no tomorrow. Using less and reusing more is good for the America, for the environment, for the world, and could be good for the pockets.
Great idea. IKEA should become a role model for other companies. they should enforce that in all IKEA stores around the world, not only in the US.
I think this is a great idea. For years I have been using my Walmart/Safeway bags for garbage, lunches and where ever else we can use them in our family. Sure, it is more trips to the trash, but at least they are being used twice. I hope more companies follow suit.
IKEA To Stop Providing Free Disposable Bags March 15
In an attempt to tackle waste and help environmental damage, IKEA announced yesterday that they will no longer provide free disposable plastic bags in the United States. The bold move follows the UK decision last summer to ditch the free
The amount of packaging in Ikea’s products is staggering. I even commented on this yesterday. But Ikea’s distributors need all that packaging to eliminate shifting while items are in transit from other parts of the World. So America, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The bags are the only way the company can *try* and be eco-friendly.
– John
Eight months ago I recieved glazed looks from customers about reusable bags. Now that the word is out, more and more are getting in the program =- my new bags will be made of Ingeo (corn) and looking at different plastics that are biodegradable, compostable and non-pollutant. Our consumption gene should be taxed. as well as plastic. Even though my resusable bags are currently made from Polypropylene – they are resused thousands of times and can be recycled. it’s time everyone get on board.
Ikea is enough of a trend leader to pull this off and it’ll be interesting to see the customer reaction. It’s also a nice publicity stunt on their part. Make no mistake, not everything that sparkles is a diamond. Their products contain plenty not environmentally “blessed” chemicals, as many product tests in Europe have proven.
Ikea is targeting American consumers for re-education. They provide the plastic bags. They provide them! 70 million of them for free to shoppers. And they are scolding us for using them! According to Mona Astra Liss, these bags, which she and her company hand out, don’t degrade for over 1,000 years! Well, how stupid are we! So Ikea’s bag give-a-way will stop.
Says Mona Astra Liss, “our objective is to get Americans to really think about the impact of the bags which are strangling the environment.”
YOUR GIVING THEM AWAY – WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!
You know, from now on we stupid American enviromental distroyers have to pay $.5 a bag for the “honor” for shopping at Ikea. And that is just step one.
Next, after we stupid American shoppers get our minds set right, Ikea will ban the bags all together, and we will have to bring our own cloth bags if we want to shop there.
And when that blessed day arrives, blessed Mother Earth, now chocking on 100 billion plastic bags yearly in her American landfills, will flurish.
I have an idea…why not just boycot Ikea all together and just end the enviromental threat now?
No other society in this world as wasteful and ‘throw away’ like ours. I have seen several societies close up. It is not so bad to be a little more aware of what we are doing to our envioronment even if the message has to come from an outside source. Just becoz we did something for 111 yrs doesnt mean we have to continue it. We have to change with the times. Go Ikea. Hope Walmart follows. By the way the CEO of Walmart is a Green Guy too and should be making strides soon. Actually he has already started in his Kansas store. I for one think we should all do our bit. If it means taking a bag or two everytime we go out, so be it. After a while everyone gets used to it. If you dont want it there is always the option of buying the bags.
I think this a great idea. Americans need something like this to wake us up, since are government wants to hide it from us. Thank you Ikea!