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A “Shake the Habit” poster greets shoppers entering Tops Friendly Markets on Vineyard Drive in the Dunkirk-Fredonia community. Tops is one of 60 businesses signed up to join in the day-long, plastic-bag-free initiative set for April 20. |
Spurred by positive consumer reaction from a year ago, SUNY Fredonia will once again join hands with a large pool of retailers — from quaint mom-and-pop storefronts to restaurants to big box outlets — as it leads the second annual “Shake the Habit” event, a day-long campaign that encourages consumers to stop using environmentally destructive plastic bags.
Already, 60 businesses in the Dunkirk-Fredonia area have embraced the campaign and agreed not to use plastic bags at checkout on Wednesday, April 20 — which happens to mark the first anniversary of the Gulf oil spill disaster. This matches the total which participated in the event one year ago, and event organizers are adding new businesses every day.
“The list goes from Touch of Grey Boutique, Grape Country Candles and P&G Foods all the way up to Payless ShoeSource and Wal-Mart,” said Sherri Mason, SUNY Fredonia’s Earth Week coordinator and Chemistry professor who came up with the idea in 2010. Several retailers who didn’t join the inaugural campaign have signed on in 2011, which Dr. Mason declares as “very encouraging to see.” All will proudly display colorful “Shake the Habit” posters and signage in storefront windows and other areas.
Fredonia Village Mayor Stephen Keefe also embraces the “Shake the Habit” campaign, because it raises awareness of an important issue. “I think we need to take a look at what I consider to be environmental waste,” he said. “Every day we walk away from a store with something that has a life expectancy of forever. We need to have our eyes open to that. I think this is a great first step.”
Why would, for example, a supermarket that goes through a large volume of plastic bags in a single day want to join the “Shake the Habit” roster?
Tops Friendly Markets store manager Mary Pauszek needs only to look to her granddaughter for her reason. “I want to do it for her future. I want to make sure there are resources still out there,” she said. “It seemed like a great idea.”
Customer reaction to last year’s campaign at Tops was very positive, Pauszek added. “It went over well. Our customers were excited about it.”
Paper bags will be used at Tops, and reusable bags are available for purchase. Traditionally, plastic bags comprise 90 percent of all bags used in checkout lines.
Sherwin-Williams Co., likewise, is delighted to join the effort. “Anything that helps the environment is a worthy cause,” said store manager Erica Munson.
Customers of the Vineyard Drive retailer were also very receptive to last year’s program, Munson added, and the switch from plastic bags to cardboard boxes was easy to implement. While Sherwin-Williams stores, which also offer re-usable bags, have engaged in similar projects in the past, Munson is delighted to be part of a much larger project.
Participation in “Shake the Habit” dovetails nicely with JCPenney’s corporate philosophy. “At JCPenney, we take social responsibility very seriously, and have worked to reduce our impact on the environment for many years,” said local store manager Kevin Gavin. Company-wide, JCPenney recycles 75 percent of its total store waste.
Last year, the retailer utilized both reusable and paper bags instead of plastic ones, and some customers declined the use of any bag, Gavin noted. “Customer reaction overall was very positive.”
Wal-Mart, which like Tops, Sherwin-Williams and JCPenney is returning for the second year, encourages the use of recyclable resources, but prefers reusable resources whenever possible, said local store manager Brad Ballentine. “It’s the right thing to do for the environment; it’s the right thing to do for our community,” he said.
Last year’s campaign was well received by Wal-Mart customers, Ballentine noted. Students were on site explaining to customers the goal of the program as they handed out reusable bags.
The goal of the program, according to campus Public Relations Director Mike Barone, is to encourage the customers to switch to reusable bags as their new standard of shopping.
“The business support is wonderful and critical, but ultimately, it’s the behavior of consumers that we must change,” he noted. “It’s getting shoppers to remember to bring their reusable bags from home when they go shopping, and to not forget them in their cars.”
Businesses would actually love to see plastic bags go away, according to Barone, but it is customer convenience and demand that keeps them part of the shopping experience.
“One retailer told me he pays $800 per pallet for his plastic bags,” Barone added. “What store owner wouldn’t like to see those costs turned into profits?”
This year’s campaign has the potential to reach an even wider audience. “Last year, we estimated that we impacted 13,000 people, but this year we’ve had a better response (from businesses), so we anticipate that it will be more like 18,000 people,” Mason suggested.
A grant from NRG Energy, operator of a power plant in Dunkirk, has funded the purchase of 3,300 reusable bags that will be given to participating businesses to use that day. Support for the campaign from NRG continues a tradition of sustainable awareness that SUNY Fredonia began several years ago.
“This year, with NRG’s help, we will be able to distribute reusable bags to assist people in their efforts to be more sustainable. With the pollution caused by plastic bags, making a change from plastic, single-use bags to reusable bags is a small but significant step each of us can take to protect the living world,” Mason said.
“I do believe that most people understand that we can do without plastic bags,” Mason added. “I think it’s a matter of changing daily habits, and that’s hard. We are creatures of habit.”
The project is being coordinated by SUNY Fredonia’s Academic Community Engagement (FACE) Center and its Sustainability Committee. SUNY Fredonia students, however, have played a critical role. The campus’ chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America has enlisted participants and distributed “Shake the Habit” signage. Students from WNYF-TV created a public service announcement (PSA) that is running on its station and is also viewable at www.fredonia.edu/shakethehabit. Student groups such as the Campus Climate Challenge and the Department of Environmental Affairs have also played key roles, and students will be on-hand in select retail locations to answer consumer questions and share information on April 20.
To sign up your business for Shake the Habit, visit and register at www.fredonia.edu/shakethehabit or call the university’s Public Relations Department at 716-673-3323.
