Save Your Suitcase, Cut Your Carbon (A Little)
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 03.13.08
The overwhelming problem today with air travel is its huge carbon overhead. But there are also those smaller, nagging issues with taking a plane - endless security, bad (or nonexistant) food, lack of leg room - and when you've reached your destination, the possibility of lost luggage. A Swedish start-up, Kamen Ltd., is linking together the problem of luggage gone astray and CO2 emissions by selling a luggage-tracing ID tag with built-in carbon offsets. GreenBagTag is a combination of the GlobalBagTag ID system and pre-purchased offsets from the Carbon Neutral Company. There are 3 levels of GreenBagTag - a pale green card offsets .8 tons of CO2 for $36.95, bright green offsets 2.7 tons for around $82.00 and deep green offsets 6 tons for $164 - the tag is good for a year's registration of a bag owner's info in GlobalBagTag's database. Card can be re-tanked with additional CO2 offsets at gearngadget.com
Finders of a misplaced tagged bag call GlobalBagTag which after ID'ing via the serial number (no personal info is on the tag) sends the owner an SMS with the bag's location info. GreenBagTag may not solve the problem of CO2 offsets doing too little to actually cut carbon, but they do save you from having to fill out those little paper luggage tags every time you go to the airport. Via:: Newsdesk.se (Swedish)
Luggage image courtesy of Chor Ip via Flickr
These tags magically suck pollution out of the air. That's amazing. They should create giant ones. I was thinking about buying a more modern clothes washer to cut down on natural gas and water consumption but I can just buy some luggage tags and I should see my utility bills decrease. This is an impressive product. I wonder how it works.
I'll probably have to explain to the stupid that I was being sarcastic.
When I first started reading this, I thought the idea was going to be that if the airline loses your luggage, they would cover the carbon costs in offsets; which, while I don't like the idea of offsets to begin with, would have been a pretty awesome offer. Then I read the whole article and realized it's just ANOTHER way companies are utilizing BS carbon offsets as a total scam to get more money from their customers. Ridiculous greenwashing.