FASHION designer Anya Hindmarch has collaborated with Waitrose and Sainsbury’s to launch a new reusable shopping bag.
The project is defined by ‘eco not ego’ with the two supermarkets coming together in the hope of encouraging a greater reuse mindset.
It is open to all supermarkets globally, with each partner able to customise their own exclusive version of the bag in keeping with their brand.
The bag is made from 100% recycled plastic and each step and material used in making it has been fully certified under the Global Recycling Scheme (GRS).
Each bag is also ‘guaranteed’ to last ten years, having been ‘extensively’ tested for durability, the partners added.
Sainsbury’s continued by saying that the bag is designed to be ‘desirable’, which it hopes makes customers ‘excited’ to be seen with – which in turn encourages reuse.
Anya Hindmarch, founder and creative director, commented, “Everyone needs a bag to move things around. The Universal Bag is designed to offer an alternative solution that saves plastic from landfill, is simple to recycle 100%, is guaranteed for 10 years, and is hopefully special enough to inspire people to use it.
“When you throw something away, there is no ‘away’. By collaborating on this project supermarkets are showing their continued commitment to reducing the amount of plastic on our planet.”
Mark Given, chief marketing officer at Sainsbury’s, added, “We are serious about reducing plastic and we know it’s an issue our customers and colleagues are passionate about too. It’s why we set an ambitious target to reduce our use of plastic packaging by 50% by 2025 and committed to making it easier for our customers to recycle while offering them more reusable options when they shop with us.
“It’s for this reason that fourteen years after we first partnered with Anya Hindmarch on the ground-breaking ‘I Am Not A Plastic Bag’ we’re delighted to join forces with her again on a brilliant new initiative, The Universal Bag. Reducing plastic and tackling the climate crisis can’t be solved in isolation, it requires collaboration and we’re proud to represent that message and inspire change as part of Anya’s new campaign.”
James Bailey, executive director at Waitrose, commented, “We recently took the decision to remove our bags for life as our research showed that they were increasingly being treated as a single use item, and this is part of our commitment to only use plastic where it can be recycled, reused or home composted by 2023.
“Plastic will continue to have its uses but we must not create any more of it unnecessarily. Instead, we must repurpose, reuse and make existing plastic materials circular – this is why we’re excited to be an early adopter of Anya Hindmarch’s new Universal Bag as it is a great example of circularity at work.”
