GreenSak has been in the news lately....
The Arizona Republic - August 18, 2007Gilbert business sells environmentally friendly, reusable grocery sacksDavid van den Berg
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 18, 2007 12:00 AM A Gilbert woman is helping people take steps to save the planet.
Debi Berndt owns GreenSak, a home-based business that sells environmentally friendly, reusable grocery bags.
Berndt said that 95 percent of her customers are buying these sacks for the first time.
"This is their very beginning step into looking at the planet in a different way - they're not going to stop," she said.
So far this year, GreenSak has sold 50,000 to 60,000 bags, which are made in China.
One bag is $4, a five-pack is $18 and a package of 10 bags is $32.
The company saw a big spike in business around Earth Day in April, and a smaller spike last month around the Live Earth concerts to raise awareness about climate change.
The company's customers have included individual shoppers, cities such as Flagstaff and fundraising organizations, and its business is split about equally among the three types of customers.
The most common order for an individual consumer is 10 bags, Berndt said. With a 10-bag order, the customer receives a free bag that folds and zips into a size comparable to a small purse.
GreenSak plans to add products, including a bag that can hold six glass bottles or jars of products such as wine or spaghetti sauce.
Berndt started a project in 2005 called Project Get Green, which was designed to teach her children community responsibility and how to reduce consumption. She operates Project Get Green today as the fundraising portion of the business, which she started in 2005.
Before she started the business, Berndt worked in marketing and public relations, and wasn't the environmentalist she is now.
Now, she's installed an energy-efficient air-conditioner in her family's Gilbert home, uses energy-efficient light bulbs, conserves electricity by shutting off lights and appliances and unplugging them when possible, and takes a one-gallon bucket of water a day from the shower to water the lawn, as do her husband and two children.
There are three tips that everyone should follow, Berndt said. First, switch to more environmentally friendly light bulbs. Second, never use instantly disposable items. Third, drivers should make certain their tires are inflated correctly, which can save gas and reduce emissions, she said.
"They're just too simple not to do," she said.
A version of this story may have appeared in your communityRepublic.
Source: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0818greensak0818.html
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The Arizona Republic - August 9, 2007
Buy a bag, help save the planet
GreenSak article here: - http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/0809gr-greensak0809-ON.html
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The Arizona Republic - August 7, 2007
Bagging mathDesigning environmentally friendly grocery bags, Debi Berndt of Gilbert has had to delve into a part of her academic past she didn't think would ever be relevant.
No, not shapes and patterns. She has had to rely on algebra.
In school, Berndt never thought she would need to figure an unknown. But when it came to calculating shipping costs, or converting measurements into metric, she needed to resurrect long-forgotten algebraic formulas.
"It wasn't my cup of tea. I definitely thought it was a big waste of time," Berndt, 37, admitted. "Shipping and importing and trying to estimate size totally hits home now."
Two years into owning GreenSak, Berndt has developed her own spreadsheet and formulas to track her business.
But it doesn't end there. Berndt has two boys. Those boys have homework, and that homework invariably comes with haunting algebra questions. Berndt said she recently had to try to remember how to find the area of a triangle. And it was tough.
"You feel like a real dummy when they ask you simple math questions," she said.
The Buffalo News - August 10, 2007
Tops making reusable bags available at all of its stores
GreenSak mentioned here:- http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/135848.html
Newport News Times - October 18, 2006
'Get green' at Oceana Local grocer, Rhonda Fry, of Oceana Natural Foods Cooperative in Newport is proving it is trendy to be "green." She has recently started stocking GreenSak - Project Get Green! reusable grocery bags. "I was happy to start selling GreenSak re-useable bags because paper bags cost our store so much money and just get thrown away. Our cashiers ask each customer if they would like a re-useable bag for $3 or if they would like a paper bag. We have sold over 100 GreenSaks in less than a month and I'm sure that has saved us more than that number of large grocery bags. We are thrilled with our customers' response," says Fry.
Oceana Natural Foods Cooperative is located at 159 SE 2nd and Benton Streets in Newport.
Source: http://www.newportnewstimes.com/articles/2006/10/20/business/business05.txt
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