Green Cotton

We all know one of the easiest and simplest ways to go “green” is to bring reusable bags to the grocery store. Did you do this the last time you went to the store? Maybe not. If you are like me, you might have forgotten to slip one in your bag for the last minute errand you did not anticipate. With the best of intentions, it is a lot harder to execute this simple act on a consistent basis.

Yet, despite the challenges, many are happily succeeding at this all-important change in behavior (just check out your local Trader Joes, Food Coop, Farmers Market, or Whole Foods for some indication). If the market provides any clues as well, with more than several dozen reusable bag companies on the market, demand is strong and growing. This is great! Indeed, let’s celebrate these efforts, while also recognizing we can still do more.

At the same time, it’s interesting to look at companies and organizations that are taking this simple green grocery bag step a little further. Recognizing the growing trend, why not push the envelope and see how much impact one can achieve from a single re-usable bag? That is exactly what Laura Bush asked when she started Feedprojects.org 3 years ago in 2006 with her debut bag FEED 1.

Three years have passed since FEED1 and to their credit, the bags are now stocked at nearly every Whole Foods in the country along with several other major chains. In addition to raising $4million dollars through FEED bags (donated to the World  Food Progam (WFP), the bags seem to have  increased interest in global hunger alleviation, while also fomenting the demand for reusable bags.

So what are these bags all about?

Unlike traditional “fair trade” bags, which benefit artisans in developing countries at point of purchase in those countries, Feed bags benefit people in developing countries at the US checkout line (eg once they are purchased here). As an example, the FEED 1 Bag sells for approximately $30 dollars and with that, supposedly provides 100 meals to hungry children in Rwanda. By the end of 2007, FEED raised donations for the World Food Program (WFP) to feed over 37,500 hungry children in school for one year. In 2008, FEED Projects various partnerships will lead to over $4 million for WFP school feeding.

The problems being address will clearly take some time to solve, but one step at a time, each bag counts.  According to Feedprojects.org, “hunger and malnutrition kill more people than AIDS, malaria, and TB combined. Almost 400 million children around the world go to bed hungry every night. In fact, every five seconds a child dies because he or she is hungry.”

While it is true that no single solution will solve global malnutrition, what’s not to like about a simple campaign supporting a simple product that raises awareness about global malnutrition while helping to solving it…AND reducing plastic grocery bag use (remember it takes up to 1,000 years for one bag to decompose in a landfill).

In addition to the hunger impact, all FEED products are made as eco-friendly and fairly as possible. The bags are produced with high-quality, 100% organic cotton and natural burlap. FEED works with only audited and certified fair labor facilities.

Images courtesy of http://www.feedprojects.org/content.asp?tid=16.

Bergdorf Goodman and Rugby by Ralph Lauren have joined in the fun, too. Each of these retailers collaborated to create a version of the FEED Bag.

Bergdorf’s FEED 2 Bag (featured above) supports the Kenyan community as it was handcrafted by a group of deaf Kenyans.  Furthermore, each bag purchased feeds 2 hungry Kenyan school children for an entire year.

The Rugby FEED Bag gives money to The Feed Foundation to support student activists who go abroad to join the force in combating hunger around the world.

Bobbi Brown and Lauren Bush recently collaborated to create a FEED makeup bag that will benefit disadvantaged women who have joined the UN’s food for work program.

So check it out, and see what you can do next time you bring your re-usable to the store. Why not make it an act of social impact as well. Can’t hurt, right?

To see  and read more on FEED’s ever-expanding array of bag selections, visit the Feed Foundation.

Photos courtesy of Feed Projects

By Morgan Laske and Shana Yansen