The Bagless Cord

Long description

Each year, we use 10 billion bags just to carry our shoes home from the store. Put together, that’s more than enough to canvas an area the size of NY and LA combined. With more and more retailers switching to paper bags, “Paper or plastic?” is no longer a question. But even though they are biodegradable, paper bags aren’t as eco-friendly as they seem. Compared to plastic, paper bag production wastes more water and is emits 4 times as much greenhouse gases.

That’s why we set out on a mission to eliminate all bags used in footwear retail. The result is bagless – an ergonomic, recyclable and sturdy weave of paper strings that form a makeshift handle for carrying boxed goods. It reduces environmental impact by more than 94% compared to conventional paper bags while representing a decidedly more sustainable alternative to plastic bags.

When considering pricing, weight and compactness, it has a significant advantage over paper bags and can compete with plastic bags. The cords are packed into cardboard cartridge dispensers to facilitate shipping and storage.

In a market handing out 10 billion bags each year, replacing just 10% of bags with bagless cords could save up to 210,000 tons of CO₂, 500,000 cubic meters of water and 19,000 tons of fossil fuel. If this amount represented paper bags exclusively, this 10% switch would have roughly the same effect as eliminating 140,000 cars off the road each year.

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