The BioBag

This past weekend, I did some grocery shopping at the Garden Patch, which is a health-food store located on Edison Rd. I purchased my first 4-pack of 100% recycled toilet paper (thank you Melissa, for the inspiration!), and I was in the process of looking for biodegradable kitchen bags.

The shopkeeper noticed; he asked, "is there anything I can help you find?" I asked him if they carried those kitchen bags. "No," he said, "I think it costs too much for us to carry at the moment because there isn't a demand for that product."

"Not yet," I countered hopefully. He smiled in agreement.

Ok, so I'm a psychologist, clearly not an economist or businesswoman. So what is it going to take to create a demand for this product? Am I the only person in South Bend who is interested in purchasing biodegradeable trash bags?

Hardly. I'm really not that special.

So I was thinking of trying an experiment. The question is: How long will it take for retailers, such as the Garden Patch, to start carrying this product? One month? Two? Three? A year?

And here's a related question: How does a "demand" begin? With repeated requests by one person or several people?

This is the product I want to buy: They're called BioBags, and they're kitchen bags not made from polyethylene (i.e., oil), but made from corn.

Well, I'm going to keep asking for this product, just to see if, statistically speaking, I can reject the null hypothesis--that is, repeatedly asking for BioBags will not result in the store carrying this product.

If you're interested in testing this hypothesis, I think that will help in stirring-up a "demand."

Here's the Garden Patch's phone number: (574) 255-3151 and here's their address: 228 W. Edison Rd.