Hopefully, by now, most of you have heard about Anya Hindmarch’s bag project. What I found most amazing of all were these few stats from a recent article in the Times:

Made from polyethylene, a petroleum product, the common plastic bags that stores put our groceries in take as long as 500 years to degrade.

Then, Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags a year, recycling less than 1 percent of them.

Wow. And there is more.

We like the idea of promoting a cloth bag through clever branding, PR and a high-end designer name. Good stuff indeed. Now if we can just remember to bring it along with us to work or wherever we go when we’re not going directly to the shops.

And while we’re on this reusable thread, we’re looking for help with an idea we’ve had recently: launch a new “bottled water” brand that is basically a refillable empty bottle branded as tap water with a clever label and name—something like TAP could be cool. And perhaps the plastic is Natureworks PLA or something that has a biodegradable, biological or technical nutrient story built in to overcome the negative baggage with plastic. The bottle could be filled on purchase but the consumer would be instructed to refill it continually. Since tap water in many places has been shown to be as good or better for our health than bottled water, it seems like a train that today’s conscious consumer could board easily with the right brand personality and some good PR. The sales for the proceeds could go to water projects in the region whose tap water was being used to keep the story local. Or perhaps a percentage could go to a developing country with more serious water problems. Lots of fun and possibility with this campaign — but essentially an empty branded vessel to promote the use of tap water in order to: save the resource, the energy to transport it, the plastics from filling the landfills, and, oh yeah, money. The benefits are enormous.

Drop a line if you want to brainstorm this one with us. And if it’s good enough to steal, we’re willing to open source the idea here and now. Belief in karma, or something.