Project Green Planet

Local businesses in Cornwall are being asked to go green.

The organisers of Cornwall Business Week want companies to pledge to be more environmentally friendly.

Organised by Cornwall Pure Business and Cornwall Enterprise, the Grow Greener campaign encourages firms to reduce car use and turn off lights and computers.

More than 50 companies have already signed up, including BBC Radio Cornwall as part of its Planet Cornwall campaign.

The organisers are hoping to have many more pledges by the end of the week.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Since we began our initiative to reduce plastic bag use in our store, charging 5¢ for each plastic bag a customer uses, we have sold 36,571 plastic bags, and that means $1,828.55 in money donated to American Forests! According to early estimates we are reducing plastic bag consumption by 80-90% at IKEA stores across North America. Thank you to IKEA Seattle customers for helping us “Bag the Bags” and help American Forests.

IKEA is asking our customers to join us in reducing plastic bags usage by 50% – from 70 million to 35 million in the first year. On March 15th, 2007 we began charging 5 cents for every “throw-away” plastic bag. All proceeds* from the first year of this program will be donated to American Forests, the nation’s oldest non-profit conservation organization, to plant trees and offset CO2 emissions.

WHY? The amount of plastic shopping bags that we all use once and toss is overwhelming…..

- The average family of 4 accumulates 1460 plastic shopping bags a year
- 100 billion are given away each year in the US
- Plus it can take up to 1000 years for a plastic bag to break down in the environment.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE! IKEA has a great alternative to “throw-away” plastic bags- the IKEA Blue Bag. We’ve reduced the price on this large, reusable and durable bag to 59 cents. One of these bags can replace hundreds of “throw-away” plastic bags and has lots of great uses!

* A maximum contribution of $1,750,000 within 12 months

Source: ikea.com