The well known home furnishing store IKEA, will begin charging customers for plastic bags with the plan to eventually stop using them altogether. IKEA will charge customers five cents per bag. Each year the world wide chain provides 70 million bags to its U.S. customers alone, and plans to cut that in half within a year. The store already offers reusable bags for 99 cents and plans to cut that charge to 59 cents to help encourage consumers to use them.
Estimates indicate that the U.S. throws away 100 billion bags each year. Ikea is the first retailer in the U.S. to begin this type of program. It has already been implemented in U.K where they have cut their bag consumption by a whopping 95 percent.
Source: MSNBC, IKEA to charge U.S. customers for plastic bags, February 21.
Photo Credit: George Widman / AP
