Justification Report for Barnes & Noble Research Paper

Justification Report for Barnes & Noble - Research Paper Example This report provides an evaluation of the environmental impact of paper bags and plastic bags. Through this evaluation I will come to a conclusion on the kind of actions, the company Barnes & Noble must take to ensure favourable publicity from environmentally conscious actions. The main points expressed in the report are: †¢ Plastic Bags are harmful to the environment because they are non biodegradable and generate huge amounts of litter. †¢ Plastic Bags are toxic to animals and marine life. †¢ Paper Bags, though biodegradable and recyclable need a lot more resources than plastic bags to be produced. †¢ The impact of both plastic bags and paper bags is thus, negative. †¢ The solution is to use reusable bags. †¢ Barnes & Noble must charge a nominal amount for plastic bags, and then donate the proceeds to charity. †¢ By publicising this, Barnes & Noble will get favourable publicity and consumer behaviour will be affected because they will use more reusable bags. †¢ Barnes & Noble can also sell branded reusable bags thereby ensuring more publicity with minimal investement. Introduction This report seeks to examine whether paper bags should used over plastic bags at Barnes & Noble, the largest bookseller in the United States.1 The question is whether the environmental concerns that exist for plastic bags are absent in paper bags and what position should Barnes & Noble choose to improve public relations through environmental activism. Plastic bags and paper bags both leave an environmental footprint but the key question is which one affects the environment more. Problem Statement Paper bags are widely seen as better than plastic bags since they are supposed to be biodegradable. However, for a company like Barnes & Noble to switch to paper bags and totally eliminate plastic bags requires significant investment and thus such an investment should be backed by verifiable fact. Thus, there is a need to study whether the costs of switching from paper bags to plastic bags are justified by the benefit to the environment which in turn will give favourable public ity to Barnes & Noble. I propose to evaluate the benefits that plastic and paper bags have over each other and propose a solution that will benefit the environment and Barnes & Noble. Method Used I did an examination of the various primary and secondary sources available to understand the environmental issues concerned with both plastic and paper bags. Based on those findings I proposed a plan of action that will give favourable publicity to Barnes & Noble along with being cost effective. Findings Plastic bags are ubiquitous in America today because they are cheap to produce, plentiful and easy to carry. They have also captured 80 percent of the grocery store market. 2The biggest threat that plastic bags pose environmentally is litter. The Environmental Protection Agency of the United States points out that 31 million tons of plastic waste was generated in 2010 and made up 12.4% of Municipal Solid Waste. Only 12% of this plastic waste was recycled.3 Plastic bag nuisance has become a big problem in places like Ireland, Bangladesh, Australia where they are either banned or heavily taxed. However plastic bags have huge economic advantages because they are far cheaper than paper bags. In fact, consumers and producers who earlier used to oscillate between paper and plastic bags have switched to plastic bags because of the economic advantages. 4 However, one city in the United States, that is San Francisco decided to ban plastic bags in favour of