Calling All Target Plastic Bags

Target used Newsweek’s green issue last week to offer a solution to some of the plastic bag waste they’re responsible for producing. Teaming up with Terracycle, they’re asking users to mail in all their plastic Target bags in return for a reusable tote – the Retote. The best part about the call to action is the way plastic bags are mailed in. The cover of the magazine becomes the pouch for your plastic bags. Tear off the cover, use a little tape to seal the edges and stuff all your target bags into the pouch. The postage is prepaid and the address is listed on the front of the pouch making it simple to drop into the mail. Here’s a close-up of the instructions: From the looks of it, Target then uses these bags to create the Retote. It appears as though the plastic bags have somehow been melted down slightly to form unique patterns on the front of each Retote. However, I couldn’t find any information about this online. From everything I’ve heard, it’s actually more environmentally unfriendly to melt plastic bags because of the carcinogens it releases. Leave it to Target to find a way… Look for this issue to participate.