Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Somewhere, Al Gore Is Gently Weeping

The whole point of Anya Hindmarch's "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" campaign was to save plastic bags from being used. Somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion of plastic bags go to landfills each year, and it's nice to think that someone might walk into Whole Foods, buy one of Ms. Hindmarch's bags for 15 bucks, and use it to carry his groceries home (shown, right), thereby saving a plastic bag.
Hindmarch's bags, as her Web site notes, have sold out in the United States. Is this because the U.S. is finally jumping on the Gore bandwagon and becoming a bastion of environmental responsibility?! Nope, no, of course not. It's because we love fashion!
I've seen many girls in New York carrying the sold out bag -- as a purse. No one is using it for groceries, no one is logging anything as much as a bottle of wine or a magazine in it.
Then, today, my co-worker reported that he actually saw a picture of irony walking down 23rd Street this morning: A girl wearing an "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" purse on her shoulder while carrying a plastic bag.
Was the offender too dumb to note the irony? I would have at least been smart enough to stash the plastic bag in my Anya Hindmarch bag, thereby escaping such uninvited scrutiny.

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