Villa Bans Plastic Bags

Crossed linked at Mr. Dyke's Blog


I just had my second meeting with Villa and it was a good one. I found out that they have 18 Villas in Thailand and the smallest one is in Nichada Thani. However this Villa alone uses 500,000 bags per year.
They were very impressed by the # of people on Facebook supporting this cause and were encouraged to do more because of it.
They have not committed to charging for plastic bags. Instead, they went with the plan and have agreed to BAN all plastic bags at Villa (in Nichada). As well, they will do the same for Villa (in Phuket). This is a giant leap forward, as only a couple years ago it was hard to get anyone to consider this topic. If these two locations are successful, then naturally they would look to expand this to all 18 stores. They are even thinking of maybe having a battery return station at their stores and are looking to alternatives to foam. So Villa has made their commitment and many parts of the plan are already laid out. They will launch this either late January or sometime in February. They actually had a set date, but I couldn't make it... opps ; )

Where do you come in? This is the MOST IMPORTANT PART. All you need to do is... are you ready for it? You need to SHOP! That's it, however, it is absolutely crucial that we support this. When the day is chosen to launch, we MUST have as many supporters there as possible. We need to put our money where our mouth is. That means showing up and buying your groceries for the week. Show Thailand that going green is actually good for business and is a win-win situation. I plan on getting as much media coverage as possible, so if you have connections let me know. I have some already. This will be a major flop if only 80 people turn up. I am setting a target goal of 1000 people. Hopefully we can get more. If we make this a HUGE success with a HUGE turn out then the rest of Thailand will listen and it will make future projects more possible. Remember Villa is only project 1.

When the date is set I will send out an invitation and hopefully you can commit to it. It should be on a weekend.

Join up on Facebook. Over 900 people joined in 4 days!

Excellent videos also on the Facebook site about this topic

PS - keep spreading the word.
Step 1 - success!
Step 2 - up to you...