Patent Publication Number: US-2007100694-A1

Title: Method and System for Encouraging Reuse and Recycling of Shopping Bags

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION  
      The present application claims benefit of the earlier filed provisional application Ser. No. 60/727,286, filed on Oct. 17, 2005, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE  
      The present disclosure relates generally to shopping bags and methods and systems to encourage reuse and recycling of shopping bags.  
     BACKGROUND  
      In the many stores in the United States and in other countries, it is common for shoppers to be given plastic or paper shopping bags to carry their purchases home. It is also common that these shopping bags are single use items which are discarded and not reused by the shoppers. However, often these shopping bags may not be worn or damaged beyond use after only a single trip form the store to home. This may be demonstrated by the number of additional uses that people have made of these once-used shopping bags over time.  
      However, a great majority of these once-used and not-worn-out shopping bags are simply discarded. These bags then enter the common solid waste stream and may ultimately end up in landfills or other long term solid waste disposal sites. Shoppers are conventionally not encouraged, either through negative incentives (directly increasing cost to the shopper for every bag provided by the store) or positive incentives, to reuse or recycle used shopping bags. While negative incentives have been tried in the United States and may be conventional in other countries, these negative incentives have not been particularly effective in many countries. General rewards for recycling of shopping bags have not been pushed by many merchants as this does not provide a great incentive to customers to return to a particular store.  
      It is desirable to provide a positive incentive structure to encourage the reuse of shopping bags by a store that may also benefit the store by encouraging return visits by a customer.  
     SUMMARY  
      The present disclosure relates generally to a method of encouraging reuse of shopping bags and more specifically relates to recording a tracking symbol associated with a shopping and rewarding the person reusing the shopping bag. The present disclosure further relates to a system for encouraging reuse of shopping bags. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      The accompanying drawing figures, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the description, illustrate several aspects of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. A brief description of the figures is as follows:  
       FIG. 1  is a perspective view of a shopping bag according to the present disclosure with a tracking symbol.  
       FIG. 2  is a view of an alternative embodiment of a tracking symbol for a shopping bag according to the present disclosure.  
       FIG. 3  is a view of a second alternative embodiment of a tracking symbol according to the present disclosure.  
       FIG. 4  is a perspective view of an alternative embodiment of a shopping bag according to the present disclosure. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
      Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary aspects of the present invention which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.  
       FIG. 1  illustrates a shopping bag  10  with a tracking symbol  12  affixed, attached, printed or otherwise associated with the shopping bag. Shopping bag  10  may be made of any number of suitable materials which may ordinarily be usable for at least an initial use and one subsequent use. Examples of suitable materials might be but are not limited to paper, plastic, non-woven materials and woven materials. Non-limiting examples of non-woven materials may include cellulosic or other suitable, durable non-woven materials, such as Tyvec™. Non-limiting examples of woven materials might be cotton or polyester canvas, nylon. or other similar materials.  
      Tracking symbol  12  provides a way for a store or organization to track when shopping bag  10  was first given to a person and when shopping bag  10  is used by a person to carry away purchased items from a store. In a single store example, a person may be given shopping bag  10  when making a purchase at the store so that the person can carry away the purchased item(s) from the store. When shopping bag  10  is given to a person, the tracking symbol on the bag is recorded. When shopping bag  10  is brought back to the store and reused to carry away purchased items a subsequent time, the person using the bag may be given a reward for the reuse. One of the goals of providing a reward for reuse of shopping bag  10  is to encourage reuse of shopping bag  10 . Other benefits may also accrue to the store, such as encouraging or rewarding loyalty on the part of customers.  
      Tracking symbol  12  may be a unique symbol associated with shopping bag  10 , or a plurality of shopping bags  10  may include a common tracking symbol associated with a particular store or group that initially provided the bag. With a unique tracking symbol  12  on each shopping bag  10 , the number of times the bag is reused can be tracked and variable rewards may be provided based on the number of times the bag is reused. Further, the unique tracking symbol  12  may be associated with a particular person (such as, for example, the person initially receiving the bag) and that person could be rewarded directly when the bag is used a certain number of times.  
      A chain of stores or a plurality of associated stores might agree to track and provide incentives for reuse of shopping bag  10  at any of the participating stores.  
      Common tracking symbols  12  on a plurality of shopping bags  10  may allow a common incentive or reward to be provided whenever the bag is used. An example of this might be a charitable organization selling or giving away a shopping bag which permits the person using the bag to receive a discount or other reward at a participating store. Or a commonly marked shopping bag  10  could be provided by every store in a shopping mall and multiple uses of the bag at any store in the mall would be rewarded.  
      Alternatively, tracking symbol  12  might be associated with specific items within a store and the person reusing the bag may match the tracking symbol with shelf or product markings to see which products the reward is associated with. This might allow a particular supplier of the store to participate in a targeted incentive program with products provided by the supplier. Shopping bag  10  might also be marked with an advertisement or logo for that supplier or may be marked with a logo for the store providing the bag.  
      While it is preferable that shopping bag  10  be made of a durable material that may be reused a plurality of times, shopping bag  10  may be made of a less durable material, such as conventional shopping paper or plastic bags. While these bags may be suitable for one or a small number of uses, tracking symbol  12  may be used to track and reward appropriate recycling of these bags when they are beyond use. When a person returns an unusable shopping bag  10  to a store which will properly recycle the bag, the tracking symbol can be recorded and the person returning the bag for recycling may be rewarded. Even if conventional bags are only reused once or a few number of times, it is still desirable to reward such reuse and also to reward the proper recycling of the bags.  
      Alternatively, tracking symbols  112 , shown in  FIG. 2 , may be used as a form of a game piece or game board. An example of this might be a bingo game. For this example, a person might be given a shopping bag with a tracking symbol  112  in the form of a bingo card and each time the person reuses the bag, the person is given a game token to match with the card in symbol  112 . When the person acquires tokens is a winning configuration, the person may receive a reward.  
      The game concept might be reversed, using a tracking symbol  212  such as shown in  FIG. 3 . In this embodiment, shopping bag  10  might include one or more tokens to match against a bingo card at the store where the bag is being reused. If the person&#39;s shopping bag or bags  10  include tokens forming a winning configuration on the store&#39;s game card, the person receives a reward.  
      The above examples have utilized symbols on shopping bag  10 , such as may be printed, embossed, screened, or otherwise been affixed to the body of the bag itself. Alternatively, a shopping  110 , such as shown in  FIG. 4 , may include a tag or other item on which the tracking symbol  12 ,  112 , or  212  may appear. Also, while all of the above examples of tracking symbols are visually identifiable, it is anticipated that any of the tracking symbols could be in the form of machine readable symbols or items. Examples of these machine readable items may include, but are not limited to, bar codes or RFID (radio-frequency identifier) elements.  
      It is also anticipated that escalating levels of rewards may be provided on a periodic basis or each time a shopping bag  10  is reused a certain number of times, such as every fifth use of the bag. Alternatively, differently schemes for randomly rewarding reuse may be implemented, such as added rewards for a randomly selected person reusing a bag, or added rewards for every one hundredth person reusing a bag. If the tracking symbol on shopping bag  10  is uniquely identifiable, then a particular shopping bag identifier might be selected to receive an added reward the next time that shopping bag is used. Alternatively, if several merchants or stores are cooperating in providing shopping bags  10 , the unique identifier can be used to show how many of the different participating merchants the bag has been used at. An added reward can be provided when the bag has been reused at all or a specific number of the participating stores.  
      It is also anticipated that shopping bags according to the present disclosure could be incorporated into a government sponsored lottery. As a non-limiting example, a person could be provided with a free or reduced cost entry into the lottery based on a certain number of reuses of a shopping bag  10 . In this way, the lottery could be used to provide a government sponsored incentive for increasing recycling and encouraging waste reduction.  
      While the system and method hereinbefore described is effectively adapted to address the desires described in the Background, it is understood that the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the specific examples or embodiments set forth above. Rather, it is to be taken as including all reasonable equivalents to the subject matter of the claims appended to this disclosure.