GEBE Supermarket Challenge

MADAME ESTATE–GEBE launched its GEBE Supermarket Challenge where shoppers can win Naf 100 during the month of February just by using reusable bags instead of plastic bags. GEBE managing director, William Brooks, highlighted GEBE’s vision and commitment to the environment, “As one of the largest companies on the island, it is our obligation to be proactive and involved in protecting our environment.”

GEBE began its reusable bag campaign in January 2009 by distributing 10,000 reusable shopping bags to its customers on St. Maarten, Saba and Statia.   Our GEBE team also visited different supermarkets, demonstrating how many plastic bags could be eliminated by using reusable bags.

But having the bags is not enough, we have to use them.  So GEBE is launching the GEBE Supermarket Challenge.  During the month of February, shoppers can win Naf 100 just for using their reusable bag instead of plastic.  

GEBE is working together with the major Supermarkets, including Afoo, Le Grand Marche, Sangs and Sunny Foods to be able to offer prizes to customers for using reusable bags instead of plastic bags.  So, this month, the GEBE team will surprise shoppers at different supermarkets and if they are using any reusable bag, they could win a Naf 100 gift certificate at that supermarket. 

Plastic bags have a huge impact on our environment.  A plastic grocery bag is used for about 15 minutes to get groceries from the supermarket to home and they stay in our environment for up to 1000 years.  Plastic bags do not biodegrade; instead they break down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic.  They litter our environment, they end up in our landfill and they kill marine life. 

GEBE, the environmental organizations and the major supermarkets are working together in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic bags in our community, but everyone needs to do their part and bring their own bag.

On behalf of the environmental foundations, Beverly Nisbeth of the Nature Foundation, congratulated GEBE for its creative incentive to persuade the community to use the environmentally-friendly bags.  She said the hope was that there would be permanent changes in the community’s behavior in terms of the understanding that plastic bags are a real threat to the environment.  She said GEBE was showing a good example of corporate as well as individual environmental responsibility.