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'I'm not an ethical bag': Sainsbury's 'green' bag not organic or fair trade
Last updated at 14:53pm on 27.04.07The designer shopping bag aimed at promoting green awareness was made using cheap labour in China.
The "I'm not a plastic bag" bag is a must-have fashion item and 20,000 sold out within an hour at Sainsbury's. Women queued from 3am to get one of the £5 cotton bags made by leading designer Anya Hindmarch and they are changing hands on eBay for £225.
However the Evening Standard revealed that Sainsbury's was accused of hypocrisy after it admitted the bag was made in China and was neither organic nor fair trade.
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The bag, which sold 20,000 copies yesterday before 10am, is neither organic nor fair trade
The accusations come on the day Sainsbury's banned plastic bags in their stores.
The chairman of an influential Commons committee said Sainsbury's had "tarnished" its image as a promoter of fair trade products.
A campaign group which highlights the exploitation of workers in the fashion industry said making the bag in China dented the bag's ethical claims.
And the fact that the bags have been sent thousands of miles from China raised questions about whether its carbon footprint is threatening to offset its environmental benefits.
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The object of desire: One of the £5 Anya Hindmarch shopping bags
A spokeswoman for the supermarket chain conceded the bag, billed as "making a difference to the world", was "not perfect" while refusing to say in which factory the bag is made.
Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the international development select committee, said: "This tarnishes Sainsbury's image as a company that supports fair trade. It should have made a positive attempt to ensure this does not come from potentially exploited sources."
"This is bordering on the hypocritical," said Martin Hearson, of pressure group Let's Clean Up Fashion. "There is an incompatibility in claiming a product is ethical and then manufacturing it in China."
Mr Hearson claimed workers in the garment industry in China typically are paid 20p to 30p an hour.
He also said there were serious issues about the sourcing of the cotton with concerns that cotton which is not fair trade is often picked by child labour.
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Bagging a bargain: Crowds lined up at a Sainsbury's in Camden, North London, to buy one of the Anya Hindmarch eco-shoppers
The "I'm not a plastic bag" comes with a blue tag which explains the bag offers an alternative to plastic bags which "have a negative impact on the environment". No profit is made from the sale of the bag.
A Sainsbury's spokeswoman told the Standard that because the bag was a branded product, made by Hindmarch, "we're not at liberty to disclose details on the supplier".
The spokeswoman added: "I can confirm it [the factory] has been visited to ensure high standards of ethical trading."
A spokeswoman for Anya Hindmarch said the company made no secret that the bag was made in China, adding: "We never claimed this bag is perfect. We have just tried to use our influence as a maker of luxury goods to make it fashionable not to use plastic bags."
Reader views (4)
The hypocrisy is not in the bags, but what you put in them. After taking a closer look at recycling symbols on the packaging our supermarkets put their products in, I now recycle less than I used to. Some plastics you can recycle, some have been made from recycled plastics which can not be recycled again. So you may reuse you bags week after week, but have considerably more plastic in those bags which you will throw away. These free recyclable bags are good PR for the supermarkets, but only scratch the surface of a much bigger issue.
- Don C, Canterbury, England
Okay, so they're not organic, not fairtrade and are made in China, however, at least they are reusable, and are more likely to be used by fashion-conscious characters than Sainsbury's special orange shopper bag (which I personally think is great, though it's hardly a fashion statement).
What most people do not know about is that ALL our plastic bags are produced in China. Furthermore, any plastic bags which are recycled are returned to China for recycling and then, after the process, sent back to the UK for reuse resulting in massive transport and energy overheads for a throwaway product. I'd say that any measure getting people to use bags more than once is a good one.
And I think the designer deserves extra props for having designed a bag, that people are likely to treasure enough to even throw into the washing machine to prolong its use (something which is unlikely to happen with Sainsbury's orange shopper)!
- Anette S, Greater London
There is another overtly hypocritical issue that has not being mentioned yet. Last month Anya Hindmarch stocked 500 of these 'it' bags in each of their London stores inc. Harvey Nichols, naturally the queues were all the way down Sloane Street. The interesting thing that none of the joyful 'ladies who lunch' noticed was that they were sold inside a clear plastic bag!
- Lucy, London
Large retailers like Sainsbury's have a very rigorous factory and social auditing process, I would be surprised if they had watered down that process this time round. The normal plasic bags would be manufactured in China too so I don't think the air freight carbon footprint issue is important. Also most of these bags - canvas or plastic are sea freighted, not air freighted, which isn't so environmentally damaging since hundreds of other containers are shipped per vessel, thus sharing the carbon footprint between thousands and thousands of products.
- Isabel, Woking, England
