SammyBags is all about a Reusable Revolution. Every day around Aotearoa, hundreds of thousands of single-use paper bags are being disposed of by landfill or recycling.
Think about it . . .
– Land is cleared, trees are grown, logged and shipped to be processed into pulp.
– The pulp is made into paper and transported again to be made into bags.
– The bags are distributed around the globe.
– and even make their way to your local cafe where YOU walk through the door and order a scone.
– It’s used for only a matter of minutes before it’s a waste product.
Now imagine being able to reuse that bag twice, four times, 10 times . . . Hundreds of times!
Well now you can! SammyBags is all about customers taking ownership of their packaging, and shift to reusable bags and washable bags which will last years, not minutes. What the reusable cup is for coffee, SammyBags is for food. It’s all about reducing waste and shifting our behaviour from disposable, to reusable.
Our Story
Pilgrim is an espresso bar in Christchurch, which has the good fortune of having a customer come through the door and hand over her reusable bag and ask for a scone (yep that’s you Emma!) Every time I would quiz Emma with questions, heat and butter her scone, and then hand over her coffee. While Emma would beat her way back to her office, I would search for what she was using. And then I got my hands on some.
Meanwhile, in life outside of Pilgrim we also had the good fortune of meeting Samantha. Sam lived up our Street and spent more time on the swings than our two preschool kids combined. Only Sam was 18, suicidal and struggling to keep herself afloat. Sam likes kids, we have kids. Sam likes cats, we have a cat. Sam likes roast lamb and so do our kids. So we hung out and became friends, our family and Sam. Winter turned to Spring, and Spring turned to Summer. Sam was a whizz at origami and when we got our first sample of the fabric we let Sam loose on the scissors and sewing machine, and she loved it. We thought this could be a cool thing for Sam to help out with and then SammyBags was born, and we’ve been annoying her ever since.
Own it
Our environment has a direct relationship to our mental health, and we believe in the concept that business is a vehicle for positive change. We made the connection between environmental sustainability and mental health courtesy of Sam’s tattoo, “Change Nothing; Nothing Changes” which is applicable to both mental and environmental health! Basically, it’s implying that staying the same requires a decision just as much as changing does. Each time we refuse to change, we still make a decision, so if we don’t choose reusable packaging, we’re making the choice that nothing is going to change.
Own it, encourages us to… Own our spiritual, physical & mental health, Own the impact our behaviour has on our environment, and last but not least, to Own our brown paper bags, something that people would never have considered owning up until now. It’s a statement about personal responsibility, making a conscious decision, and rejects the notion of being helpless. Zero waste packaging is the future. One more link in the chain of a healthy earth is sustainable packaging, and our reusable paper bags are key.