The number of worldwide annual airline passengers is expected to reach 3.3 billion in 2014. An increase of 32% since 2009 and another 800 million more are expected in the next 5 years. Now let’s pause for a second: what do all travelers have in common?
Their need for a luggage: small or big, hard or soft, roller bag or duffel bag, and for sure light and durable, shock resistant. All filled up and packed, weighted, thrown around on the tarmac and in the baggage hold and then on the carrousel, again and again! This is the exciting life of a luggage! Do we really care: NOPE! Most of us will just wonder, every time we travel: will our luggage be the first one out of that dark tunnel…
I am not overly attached to my luggage. In my traveler’s life, I am already on number three. So I was not surprised to discover that the retail sales value of the travel segment worldwide is expected to generate about 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. For the sustainable traveler, looking beyond offsetting their carbon footprint, there is one luggage manufacturer that will help them stay true to their philosophy: Heys.
Heys has developed the world first line of eco-travel products, with hard shell pieces made from 100% recycled plastic and soft or flexible pieces made of plastic water bottles. Every flexible piece has actually a label stating how many water bottles were used to make the product. Only 6 water bottles are required for a toilet bag and 185 for a standard 3 piece set! This line of luggage does reduce the amount of plastic headed up to the landfill but it also saves Earth resources by reusing old products to make new ones. And they are still attractive and colourful…nothing like a standard plastic water bottle. So let’s all be better consumers and let’s make all the right choices. Every little step is a step in the right direction. I hope more companies follow the trend as the demand for such products should rise!
The more I do these posts the more evident it seems that customer solutions can be implemented with a little intuition and research.
http://shop.heys.ca/search?q=ecotex
Hi Gregory,
Great point, if I buy I try to buy the best. For an average person like me who doesn’t travel too much, I’ve never really thought about replacing my luggage, simply because I don’t use it enough. An item like a luggage probably isn’t something to be replaced constantly, so I would instinctively choose a sturdy and secure one. In fact, sturdiness would be at the highest priority instead of making sure that my purchase is sustainable. For Hey’s, it would be important to highlight the functionality of the recycled bottled luggage, as important as it is for any other company to first stress the quality of the product before adding in a sustainable feature. Also, you mentioned in the beginning that plane travelers are expected to increase in the future. What I was most concerned about was how to decrease the number of plane passengers and how to alter the need of travelling internationally. Surely, we all want to travel halfway across the planet to visit an exotic vacation destination, but wouldn’t a domestic city be just as enjoyable? Although the experience isn’t the same, you probably would be able to find a closer city to visit before taking a 15 hour flight to somewhere new. So before consumers decide where to travel to, it would be great to take a moment and see which local or domestic city you haven’t visited yet – it might be more exciting than expected 🙂
Jennifer