Apple Stores will ditch plastic bags for paper this month

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Am I the only one who dislikes Apple Store bags?
Goodbye, old friend!
Photo: hellosanta1225

As part of Apple’s continued focus on the environment, Apple Stores will soon ditch their instantly recognizable plastic bags for new paper ones made of 80 percent recycled materials.

The official changeover happens April 15, although stores will continue to use the old plastic bags until they run out of stock. The new bags come in both medium and large sizes.

The transition to paper Apple Store bags doesn’t come as a complete surprise. When the Apple Watch arrived, Apple introduced paper bags with colored rope handles for its wearable device, similar to bags used in high-end fashion boutiques.

Last year, the company also bought up 36,000 acres of private forest land (roughly 2.5 times the size of Manhattan) in Maine and North Carolina, which will produce the tree pulp for Apple’s new packaging.

At the time, Apple’s VP of environmental initiatives, Lisa Jackson, told BuzzFeed: “Imagine if every time you opened a package from a company you knew that it came from a working forest. And imagine if companies took seriously their paper chain and made sure that was renewable, just like energy. And imagine if they didn’t just buy renewable paper, but took the step of ensuring that they would stay working forests forever.”

At last month’s iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro event, Jackson took to the stage for the first time ever at an Apple keynote. She described how 99 percent of Apple’s packaging comes from recycled paper, or sustainably managed forests, and how this number would increase in the future.

Source: 9to5Mac

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