Starting September, you’d have to pay 2 pesos for every H&M paper bag

H&M launches a new initiative to encourage customers to bring their own reusable bags via a digital press event held on August 20, 2020. It’s time to start bringing your own bags when you go shopping.

Php 2.00 for every paper bag of any size

The project is called Let’s Reuse, an eternal program where customers will be charged Php 2.00 for every paper bag of any size when they shop in any H&M stores in the Philippines starting September 1, 2020. All the proceeds will go to non-profit organization Waves for Water Philippines to support their clean water projects in many local communities in the country.

“To reduce our paper bag wastes and encourage our customers to bring their own reusable bags whenever they shop at H&M or anywhere else, we will start to charge our customers with Php 2.00 for every paper bag, all proceeds from the paper bag charge will go to benefit the clean water projects of Waves for Water Philippines,” said Marian Dang, Sustainability Manager of H&M in South East Asia.

Digital press event

The digital press event which was hosted by H&M’s Head of Communications Dan Mejia and UN Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador and founder of non-profit organization CORA, Antoinette Taus laid out the reasons why there’s a need to launch the said project in the country, “We all know that single-use plastic bags harm the environment, and paper bags aren’t the best solution either. About 80% of all paper bags end up in landfills – they often do not biodegrade for decades because of a lack of oxygen and compared to plastic bags, they cost more to landfills because they take up more space by weight and volume,” Mejia shared.

“Not only that, when we compare it to plastic, making a paper bag emits 51 percent more global warming gasses, but it also creates 50 times more water pollution, uses 4 times more raw materials, and consumes 2 times more energy,” Taus added.

Also present at the event was Jenica Dizon; Country Director for Waves for Water in the Philippines, Jon Rose; founder of Waves for Water, Carlo Delantar; circular economy pioneer of the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, and Sylvain Crouzat; H&M Philippines’ Country Sales Manager. 

Creating Awareness

“Women and children are disproportionately affected as they are often tasked with fetching water for their households – unpaid work, in effect, causing a loss of productive hours in education, menstrual health management, and other opportunities…with the help of partners who have supported the cause, and our community champions, we have now been able to reach a million Filipinos across the country’s 56 out of 82 provinces and with H&M’s Let Reuse project, we’ll be able to reach more,” shared by Jenica Dizon.

“We see the potential to create awareness and educate our customers of what sustainable fashion is about and what small actions everyone can contribute while being locally relevant and resonate with our Philippine customers…that leads us to this new project to encourage our customers to bring their own reusable bags to help protect the environment. Based on our experience from other markets that the bag charge has led to a significant decrease in the actual paper bag usage – where millions of paper bags have been saved,” Marian Dang highlighted.

Waves for Water Philippines

H&M aims to engage its customers in the process, “We want to educate and make it easy to understand that by not taking single-use paper or plastic bags at the cashpoint, you are doing something good for the planet. But if you have to buy a paper bag because you are not ready or prepared yet, do not feel bad, because you are still doing good by contributing to provide clean water to our local communities through our partner Waves for Water Philippines,” she added.

Following the event, H&M will start rolling out its customer information campaign to better understand the project.

To know more about Waves for Water, you can follow them at @wavesforwaterphilippines and @wavesforwater. You can also check their website: https://www.wavesforwater.org 

For more updates about the project and upcoming news about H&M, you can follow their Facebook page H&M and @hmphilippines.  on Twitter.