Jerusalem art students tried their luck recently at weaning Israelis off their addiction to plastic bags at the city’s Machane Yehuda market.Green Prophet recently reported on ‘Plastic for Free’ phenomenon of nylon-binging in Israeli shops, so it’s welcome news that their new shopping bags are not only eco-friendly (made from cloth instead of plastic), they’re cheap (1 shekel each) and stylish too (courtesy of students from the nearby Bezalel Academy of Art and Design).Reporting on them for the Jerusalem Post I recounted an all-too familiar shopping experience in Israel:
“Don’t worry, it’s only a plastic bag,” a fellow shopper at Mahaneh Yehuda market told me when I declined the offer of a free plastic bag to carry home my groceries.
The students’ antidote to nylon-addiction comes in the shape of the woolen sakita. Alas, their limited-edition bags were all snapped up in one day, but the idea behind them is long-term: there is an alternative to plastic bags (or if you can’t resist them, then at least re-use them). And in case you were wondering why this matters, Israelis use five billion plastic bags each year which, if they don’t end up in landfill sites, litter open spaces and kill wildlife that swallow them.
Related posts: Plastic for Free Can Israeli Bag the Bag?Greening the Market, Jerusalem Post
Photo: Michael Green.
Author: Michael Green
Born into a family of auto mechanics and engineers in east London’s urban sprawl, Michael bucked the trend and chose a bicycle instead of a car. A relative newcomer to Jerusalem, he works as a freelance journalist writing for the Jerusalem Post and other publications. Before moving to Israel, he worked for an environmental NGO in England where he developed a healthy obsession with organic vegetables and an aversion to pesticides and GMOs. Michael’s surname is pure coincidence. Michael can be reached at michael (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
(PS the idea about the bagbowl was that other people could use these used bags for shopping)
Here an image:
http://www.oneworld.nl/Nieuws/article/8965/Tassenbol_in_supermarkt_gaat_overtollig_plastic_te_lijf
I’m also against plastic bags, but why not recycle the plastic bags several times?
Here in Holland someone invented a huge, transparant (and very decorative) “bagbowl”, where people could throw their useless plastic bags in.
Never heard from the invention again though…
Must be a money case I fear, since we pay 10 cents for a plastic bag at the local supermarket.
Looking to buy the “sakita” .Do you know how to buy it? l in arge quantities ?
I can assure you they are all the rage these days. Here they are in action: http://picasaweb.google.com/sakitashuk/DEoiMI
Nice idea, but these bags look to me like pillowcases from prison. Are there even handles on the things?