A few weeks ago I was more than a little dismayed to come home from a grocery shopping trip with 20 plastic sacks. I mentioned this, and then the next day showed off a sack that I had made myself.
I’m ashamed to admit that the next time I went shopping I compeltely forgot to take it with me.
And I forgot it again on Saturday when we went as a family to do some shopping. But! At SuperTarget I found that they had reusable shopping bags for sale, so we bought several and I can guarantee you that I am not going to bother making my own.
The larger one has a flat-bottom and and insert to help it stay up. It fit 4 boxes of cereal with no problem. The pouch in front is a bag that is about the size of a regular grocery sack, maybe a little smaller, but it zips up nicely into the attached pouch.
$1.49 for the big one and $0.99 for the small one.
I could not find them on Target’s website, but they are made by a company called Green Bag. They don’t sell to consumers, but they do have a bunch of info about their products on the site.
Now all I need to do is remember to put the reusable bags in the car (and then remember to take them into the store with me…)
When we checked out at Target, we put the sacks on the conveyer first, and the cashier very brightly unzipped them all and set them out so he could fill them with our groceries.
Then, he started scanning our groceries: and the first item he scanned he tried to put into a plastic grocery sack. He realized pretty quickly what he was doing, but I thought it was kind of funny that his routing is so ingrained…
Something else that we did over the weekend (well, Mark did it…) was to purchase and install some pipe insulation on the hot water pipes that go to the kitchen sink. Instant gratification: before supper on Saturday I used some hot water, and shortly after supper when I started rinsing dishes: the water was still warm. It’s a small thing, but over time the amount of water that we won’t be wasting (while waiting for the hot water to reach the faucet) should add up.
Later!
Suzanne
Our local Whole Foods was offering similar sacks for .99 for awhile; I should check back and see if they still are. The Target bags do look nice, though.
I’m having trouble getting certain members of the family (cough cough) to use the cloth bags, despite the fact that there are a number of them wandering around the car. Even discounting the ecological implications, I sure would be glad to not have mounds of plastic bags floating around our house!
I like those, and they are economical. Our grocery store was offering some canvas ones for awhile, but they were over $5.00 apiece, and my trips to the store are usually a MINIMUM of five paper sacks…usually more. I can deal with $1.49 apiece much better. I could buy like ten of them…that would sure cut down on paper sacks!
What great reusable bags. They don’t have them at our Target — but, maybe I just haven’t been looking hard enough. Thanks for the heads up! LOVE Hanna’s quilt AND the hat (my Mom bought that book over the holidays — GREAT hats. I just checked out the second book “Itty Bitty Nursery” out from the library — not much for me, the sizes are too small — but you might want to look for it — cute, cute sweaters).
Lots of the cheap reusable bags out there are made from petroleum-based products, are made in sweatshop-like conditions and then are shipped into the US. BaggyShirts – Reusable Bags Made From Recycled Clothing for a Healthier Planet!
Made from recycled men’s shirts, they are made locally by folks who make a decent wage – very low carbon footprint!
Check them out at http://www.baggy-shirts.com!
Darn cute bags. And of course it doesnt hurt that they are RED!
Gayle
Love the reusable shopping bags. I saw them at publix today and bought a bunch. Now to remember to take and use them!
I just purchased some eco bags from amazon. I actually bought them for small customer quilts but decided I had to keep them for my groceries! I also saw a bit on Martha Stewart where they took tee shirts, sew’d the bottom shut & cut out the neck & arms for a eco bag. They were very cool & could be easily squeezed into your purse. Cool!