The Plastic Fantastic Award

The use of plastic bags has greenies in a tizzy, so much so that some cities such as Montreal have banned retailers from handing them out, while companies like Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Wal-Mart Canada Corp. charge five cents a bag in an effort to get people to bring their own. However, East West Market owner David Kwen’s efforts to shame plastic bag users backfired quite spectacularly. Noticing that Vancouver’s plastic bag charge of five cents wasn’t very effective, he decided to print embarrassing fake store names on his bags: Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium, Wart Ointment Wholesale and The Colon Care Co-Op. But people loved the new bags so much that they started to come to the store just so they could get one. At least, as Kwen noted to NPR, the bags got people talking. He’s now printing the slogans on canvas tote bags.