P&G has unveiled its Tide’s Smart Bag, an eco-friendly package that can be used as a shopping list paper for many times. It looks like a lined notepad and is supplied with a marker. After having used the detergent, consumers can use the bag for shopping.

Photo: Tide Smart Bag, from Rafael Rizuto, Leo Burnett Dubai Senior Art Director’s profile on behance.net

The new bag is a creation of P&G’s ad agency for Dubai, Leo Burnett that was tasked to develop the product as well as capture a video spot about it.

The bag is washable and the shopping list on it can be easily erased to reuse again and again when consumers go shopping. The bag is to become success in the UAE where the plastic waste problem is alarming. Of the 500 billion bags of this type used around the world, the UAE consumed 20 billion of them, reports Ad Age.

It all started when the UAE’s Minister for Environment announced that one-use plastic shopping bags must be eliminated by 2013. P&G then got the idea to create the Smart Bag and face the global pollution problem starting from the UAE.

The bag was distributed along with a marker and a box of the detergent to customers, fashion editors and bloggers. Tide plans to make the bags available on a regional basis soon.  Hopefully, as part of its Sustainability goals and following its 2011 sustainability achievements, P&G will expand the bag in other countries.