Boomerang bags set to fly
Look out plastic, there’s a new bag in town.
A global initiative known as ‘‘Boomerang Bags’’ has arrived in Nelson, aiming to kit out shops and supermarkets with reusable fabric bags that can be borrowed and returned.
‘‘A supermarket for example will have a stand... and then people can just borrow [the bags], use them for their shopping, and then drop them back off again when they’ve finished with them,’’ organiser Lani Bee said.
She said the idea was to remove any excuse for shoppers to use plastic bags instead of fabric.
‘‘People say ‘oh well people just won’t bring them back’ but that’s fine too. If they want to keep the bag, and they are beautiful bags, then that’s up to them,’’ Bee said.
‘‘They are going to have logos printed on the side which say ‘borrow and bring back’.’’
Bee said she’d put the call out on Facebook and had been overwhelmed with people interested in helping sew bags.
‘‘I’ve had the Facebook page set up for less than two weeks and I’ve got nearly 200 people on there already.’’
More than a dozen turned up to a sewing session at the Tahunanui Community Centre on Saturday morning, and Bee said the intention was for the centre’s weekly sewing and upcycle classes to help make bags too.
The fabric had been donated by businesses, including places like Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore.
‘‘Re-using clothes they can’t sell... because a garment might have a hole in it or a stain or something like that... And things like linen, duvets, sheets, and table cloths can all be reused.’’
She said they would launch the bags in stores a couple of months once they’d made a few hundred bags.
‘‘In the last two weeks I’ve had six businesses come to me and say ‘we’d love a stand, when can we have them in’,’’ Bee said.
She said also intended to sell bags made from donated new fabric to help cover their costs, and they would have ‘‘bought to support’’ printed on them.
Over in Motueka, Jo Calt also has a Boomerang Bags initiative underway.
Calt said they were launching at Motueka’s Kai Festival this Sunday and had around 300 bags ready to go.
‘‘It’s been an amazing community project,’’ Calt said.
She said Brooklyn School students were writing to Motueka businesses to ask if they wanted the bags outside their shops.
Calt said it had been a project that had brought people together across generations, with school children working alongside retirees to take up the sewing challenge and see the bags on the stands.
There are Boomerang Bag projects in a number of other New Zealand cities, including Auckland, Rotorua, and Wellington.