This Grocery Store's Embarrassing Plastic Bags Shame You Into Switching to Reusable Ones

Shaming your customers isn’t usually the best idea. But a grocery store in Vancouver is doing so—amusingly—for a good cause. 

In an effort to get people to switch to resuable bags, independent grocer East West Market printed some embarrassing fake store logos on its plastic bags. Now, in addition to paying an extra 5 cents per bag, plastic-bag users must shoulder an additional, perhaps more brutal cost—the suggestion that they’ve just patronized Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium, Dr. Toews Wart Ointment Wholesale or Colon Care Co-Op.

The bags urge shoppers to “Avoid the shame” and “Bring a reusable bag.”

“So many people own reusable bags but forget to bring them,” David Lee Kwen, East West’s owner, tells Vancouver Is Awesome. “We want to help customers remember their reusable bags in a way that will really stick with them.”

Canadians generate some 3.25 million tons of plastic waste, or about 140,000 garbage trucks’ worth, each year, according to the Huffington Post. 

Below is a video about the campaign.