While plastic bags are convenient for many things in our lives, they take a heavy toll on the environment, what with your average single-use plastic bag taking anywhere between 15 to 1000 years to decompose.

Of course, you might think, “Well, it’s just one plastic bag, how bad can it be?” 

And you certainly wouldn’t be alone. Studies in environmental psychology show that as individuals, we tend to think about our individual impact on the environment. But because there are billions of us on this planet using plastic bags, that means that there are at least a billion of these things that go to waste and pile up in landfills and oceans.

The Problem of Disposable Plastics in Australia

According to the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) lightweight plastic shopping bags made up 1.6 per cent of litter based on number of items. In 2002, it was estimated that 50 to 80 million plastic bags ended up as litter every year. Of that number, only 10 to 20 million are successfully retrieved through clean-up activities—the rest end up in the environment.

The solution is simple: replace plastic bags with more sustainable alternatives like paper bags or non-woven bags.

In Defence of Paper Bags

While it’s true that the manufacturing of paper products used to take a heavy toll on the world’s forests, the practice of sourcing pulp—the material used to make paper—in a more sustainable manner has helped to solve this problem.

According to Two Sides Australia, the Australian paper industry depends on sustainable forests as a reliable supply of wood fibre. In fact, planted forests in Australia have grown to two million hectares over the last two decades, due largely to growing awareness of sustainable paper.

In other words, paper bags are an environmentally friendlier alternative to single-use plastics. And don’t forget, paper bags are 100 per cent recyclable.

What Are Non-Woven Bags?

Non-woven polypropylene bags, also known as eco-bags or NWPP bags, are made of recyclable plastic materials, hence their designation as an eco-friendly product. They can be designed to have a ‘woven’ or fabric-like appearance by pressing a cross-thatched pattern onto the material.

And because of its durability and flexibility, won-woven polypropylene is a popular choice among manufacturers of reusable shopping bags. Eco bags are strong, easy to customise, and can be reused over and over again, which means fewer single-use plastics end up in landfills.

At Smartbag, we carry a wide range of eco-bags and paper packaging solutions. To learn more about our brown and white bags, as well as our reusable shopping bags, get in touch with the Smartbag team on our Contact Page.

Designing a retail store requires innovation, a knowledge of human psychology, and a whole lot of creativity. In this article, we list down 5 examples of truly innovative retail shop designs that you might want to emulate or, at least, take some ideas and incorporate into your retail designs.

Kindo Children’s Boutique

Stepping into this Monterrey, Mexico-based children’s boutique, you will find yourself and your kids treated to a quirky buy fun interior space. The entire store is designed using the concepts of a didactic bead maze. Children get to learn all about the different geometric shapes and forms, thanks to the innovative store design by Anagrama.

Okomeya Rice Store – Japan

The Japanese have always been distinctive with their designs and ideas, and this shows in their take on minimalist design as seen on Okomeya Rice Store. These innovators transformed the first floor of a timber building in Tokyo into a well-lit yet neatly arranged rice store. The store is operated by Japanese company OWAN, and is part of a thrust to rejuvenate the district where the store is located.

FEIT Shoe Store – New York

The result is an almost hypnotic design, with patterns that give the appearance of texture. Props to designer Jordan Maisie.

Another example of an innovative retail store interior design can be found in FEIT’s newly opened West Village outlet in New York. When you enter, you will find unique shelves made from individual planks of wood arranged on top of each with small gap in between. They look like columns of horizontal window blinds, and in the middle of each column are FEIT’s products.

Miu Miu – Aoyama District, Tokyo, Japan

Herzog and De Meuron teamed up with Italy-based shoemaker Miu Miu to revamp the retailer’s Aoyama District outlet in Tokyo, Japan. The result is an interior design concept that ups the ante in giving customers space for movement and relaxation. The design maximizes space, accessibility of the products, and comfort. Add in an excellent color scheme, and this is one shoe shop you will want to visit for ambience alone.

Book Center in Trieste, Italy

SoNo Architects in Italy certainly gave competitors a run for their money when it unveiled the design for the Slovenian Book Center in Trieste.  SoNo’s interior designers transformed a 177-square meter space into a masterpiece, featuring seemingly endless lines of bookshelves that hug the walls, leaving a huge space for reading and sitting. The interior design combines with a historical façade that looks straight out of the Renaissance, thus setting the mood for reading and learning.

Of course, interior design is not the only thing that matters when designing a shop or any living space. For retailers, they can combine good interior design with excellent marketing techniques like free giveaways. Shopping bags are great viral marketing tools to give to your customers—contact Smartbag to learn how you can use them to your advantage.

Call us at (02) 9531 8000, and we can discuss how we can help you.

Watch Out for These 5 Recycling and Waste Management Trends in 2018

There’s no doubt that efforts towards recycling waste are picking up momentum. In 2018, we saw a surge of investments into putting trash to good use, or at the very least, manage its disposal in a smarter manner, especially in Australia. Just a few years ago, this waste would have been left rot in landfills or, worse, thrown into the sea.

With a new year upon us, what can we see and expect in the recycling and waste management industry in 2019? Read on and find out.

1. Automation

The modern practice of recycling garbage has been around for decades, making it high time for certain waste management techniques and practices to evolve thanks to the rise of automation technology. We expect to see continued investment in technologies that automate several processes involved in recycling waste.

• Food Waste Will Receive More Attention This Year

Much of the focus in recycling has, for good reason, been directed at reducing waste materials like plastics, which have always been difficult recycle. In fact, we saw great strides in the field of research surrounding biodegradable and so-called eco-friendly plastic.

In 2018, however, the recycling industry will finally turn its attention to another alarming and completely unnecessary source of waste—food.

The good news is that governments all over the world have already taken action. France has already banned supermarkets from throwing away food waste. Organizations in Australia have also teamed up in a two-pronged waste management campaign that lets people trade in their unused electronic devices in exchange for food coupons that will feed homeless families using food rescued from households and restaurants.

• Landfills Will be Slowly Phased Out

Ever felt bothered by the presence of smelly and filthy landfills? The good news is that organizations around the world are finally taking action to phase out this outdated model of waste management. Last year, the International Solid Waste Association began setting examples of how to close landfills sustainably.  Several dumpsites around the world have already been shut down as a result of this initiative, and the ISWA has made it clear that it will continue doing so in 2018.

• More Focus Will Be Placed on Addressing Aquatic Waste

The term “aquatic waste” here does not refer to waste products produced by the creatures that live beneath the world’s oceans. It’s the trash people have thrown in the waters surrounding the cities.

Again, the ISWA is taking the lead by funding a worldwide task force charged with addressing the huge amount of garbage floating around our oceans and killing marine wildlife by the thousands every day.

• Recycling Will Find Its Way to More Residences

If you found it difficult to begin recycling your own trash at home, then you need not fret. More and more supermarkets and establishments are encouraging the use of recycling bags that let people segregate their trash more effectively. If you’ve always found it difficult to separate the recyclables from the trash, the use of these recycling bags will simplify this process for you considerably.

We expect 2018 to be an exciting year, not just for business, but also for the recycling industry and the world in general. If your business would like to embrace this wave of eco-friendliness and sustainability, our custom packaging solutions are just what you need. Smartbag provides a wide range of white and brown Kraft paper bags, reusable fabric bags, and reusable shopping bags.

Contact the Smartbag team to learn more.

Admit it—we’re all semi-dependent on electronic gadgets these. It’s difficult to imagine how life would be without our smartphones, for instance. Advances in technology have made mobile devices more integrated into our daily lives; aside from sending messages and making calls, our phones are cameras, gaming devices, and music devices, all in one.

This has created a very lucrative market for manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Sony and many other brands, all of whom offer a rich assortment of consumer devices for virtually any kind of budget, fuelling the incredible demand for these devices.

Unfortunately, this revolution has its own dark side—electronic waste. With technology improving faster than before, this has resulted in an accumulation of unused electronic devices. People are discarding and replacing their electronic devices faster than they can dispose of the old ones.

Of course, there are ways to deal with electronic waste and keep it to a minimum. Follow these tips to control your production of e-waste.

Wait Until the Device is Phased Out Before You Upgrade

It’s quite tempting to upgrade to the new model next year, even though your previous model is still working. Unless you got a lot of relatives and friends who’d appreciate “hand-me-down” devices, especially smartphones, then why not wait until the device loses all support from the manufacturer before you upgrade?

In the case of smartphones, new models mean new operating systems. However, you’d do well to know that each version of the operating system can be used by older models that have been released at most 5 years before. You can update your software and still enjoy the new features, minus the new ones that are marketed by each recent upgrade.

The only time to upgrade to a new phone, so to speak, is when your device is no longer supported by the new mobile operating system.

Take Care of Your Gadgets

In addition to upgrades, one more reason why people tend to discard their electronic devices is quickly is “wear and tear.” Unfortunately, while stress tests have shown that such devices are designed to last long, abusing these contraptions and not maintaining them well causes them to break down faster than their rated life expectancy.

So, people go ahead and buy new ones. However, the now broken devices are kept and not recycled, thus contributing to the amount of electronic waste accumulating all across the globe.

Take better care of your gadgets and they’ll last a lot longer. Along the way, you do the environment a favor.

Recycle

Finally, if your devices have reached the end of their lives, it’s high time now to donate your electronic devices instead of letting them sit down and gather dust. While the battery and the main processing unit may not be working, there are parts inside that can be recycled and used to make new devices.

Doing so will reduce the need for mining the raw materials that will be used to produce those components that power the more recent versions of your defunct gadgets.

You’ve done your marketing down to the dot. You’ve handed out flyers. You’ve sponsored Facebook ads. You’ve done everything to get your product in front of your target market. But have you made sure your product packaging helps to seal the deal?

Many entrepreneurs tend to underestimate the value of product packaging, thinking that customers ultimately care about the product, not the packaging it comes in. But product packaging is often called the last advertisement your customers will see. In other words, packaging is the last step in the marketing process, which means it can make or break your entire marketing campaign.

To set up your products for success, be sure to follow these four rules of effective product packaging.

Take Advantage of Cusps

You may not notice this as a consumer because it’s subconsciously planted into your mind, but cusps are a great visual cue that you can use in your product managing. Cusps are best described as sharp and accented curves that used to place strong emphasis on the product.

These icons serve to trigger certain emotional responses from the viewer. These emotions range from fear to strong caution: basically, our “fight or flight” instinct. In this case, however, it’s “look away or buy.”

Less is More

While entrepreneurs are often advised to find ways to “stand out,” that doesn’t mean you have to go all out and dazzle customers with “busy” package designs. What usually happens is that you get too preoccupied coming up with a visually interesting design that you forget the point of the product packaging—to convince customers to buy your product.

So, simplicity is, without doubt, still a thing of beauty even in today’s advanced visual landscape.

Make the Message Memorable to Anybody

Here’s a good way to test how easy it is to recall your product package.

Get a group of children—around 5 to 7 years of age—to look at one of your advertising materials. It can be a video, a poster, or one of your digital ads—just make sure it’s actually child-friendly. Next, tell the children to go to the store or supermarket and look for the product. If they can find it with no problem, you know you have a memorable product package.

A product package that a kid can recall should likewise be memorable to adults. The easier it is to read the name, logo, and message on your product package, the more likely it will stay top of mind with your target audience.

This brings us to the next rule…

Be Iconic

Be simple, but be iconic.

Create something that resonates with your customers. Take cues from Coca-Cola, Google with its Android logo, and Apple’s partially-eaten apple logo. These are all simple icons, but they have been very effective at ingraining themselves into the minds of the market.

Work closely with your graphic design team to come up with a design and the colour scheme that you and your designers think will be very effective at capturing the hearts and minds of your customers.

To get more packaging updates and insights, be sure to follow this blog. If you would like to learn more about our packaging solutions, get in touch with the Smartbag team by calling us at 1300 874 559.