Glad highlights source reduction - but will consumers understand?

I don't expect to see commercial messages that reference plastic resin consumption during an NFL game. But in commercials that ran last weekend during the football playoffs, Glad Products Co. chose to highlight source reduction achieved by its its Tall Kitchen trash bag line. According to the ads, the bags are stronger, yet use less plastic, allowing the company to save 6.5 million pounds of plastic per year. Or as the company puts it, the equivalent of keeping 140 million extra trash bags out of landfills annually. Seems like a simple, clear message. But will the public understand? Can consumers be convinced that source reduction is a legitimate path to product sustainability? It might be a tough sell, since many consumers are pre-programmed to think that the only way for a product to be sustainable is for it to be biodegradable or contain recycled content. But Glad Products deserves credit for this very high profile attempt at educating customers about source reduction -- a strategy that's widely used by plastics processors.