It's been featured on celebrity arms and glossy magazines, and designed by that celebrity designer of covetable handbags, Anya Hindmarch. It costs £5, but goes for £200 on eBay. I'm sure many Worldchanging readers are already familiar with the I'm not a plastic bag bag, created by UK organization We Are What We Do. Designer Hindmarch released the limited edition bag to celebrities and it will go on sale starting next month in British supermarket chain Sainsburys for £5. It's garnered so much press attention that the phenomenon has made other campaigns go green.
WAWWD is a self-styled "movement" that advocates simple, hands-on actions, ranging from "practice good manners" to "recycle a printer cartridge." They are also the publishers of the bestselling Change The World for a Fiver. But is it just tokenism, a conscience-soothing balm? Can creating a highly desirable non-plastic shopping bag really change mass behavior? Almost certainly, among the certain sector of the population that can afford to buy them or take notice. Perhaps even more so if this spawns mass-market imitations in the same way as high street fashion turns out copies of Hindmarch's other bags within weeks of their release. It is hard to turn curmudgeonly about something that is clearly so well-meaning and friendly.
But the "movement" - now with branches in Canada, Australia and Germany - is fuzzy in its aims: what does "changing the world" mean, when your suggestions for action include "leave work on time at least once a week," "aspire not to have more, but to be more," and "know how you fit into the bigger picture"? As this article points out, there are clear echoes of religious ethics alongside the environmentalism. I start itching for a little anarchy rather than the relentless mantra of "goodness" that their material repeats, although in my everyday life, I actually practice and preach precisely what they do - unnecessary friendliness and good manners combined with energy-saving lightbulbs. But surely people can -- and must --do more than that, particularly on the environmental front; I think good manners should be taken for granted, and any new religion for world-changing should advocate more difficult tasks -- the 21st century equivalent of St. Martin giving his cloak to a beggar. I also can't help my innate suspicion of "movements" that encourages people to follow orders rather than think for themselves. And with the news that WAWWD is now working with airline Virgin Atlantic on a campaign about flying, the accusation of greenwash will only be more likely to stick to this organization - not constituted as a charity, by the way - that is already treading a tightrope between integrity and a clever PR trick.
Still, they do manage to make critics feel like Scrooge-like cynics, and I like to remain optimistic. So I'll keep my reservations moderate, but continue doing worldchanging deeds my way, rather than abide by the directions of a branded consumer movement. Passing up plastic is a noble step, but it's still just a step, and we have many more ahead.
