BlogHer - BYO bag: Declutter your life from disposable bags - Comments

reusing produce bags

greenlagirl — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:13:36 -0500

Hey Diana -- V. crafty of you to plan to make your own felted bags! About the produce bags: An easy solution's just to reuse the produce bags you've already taken. The cotton and mesh produce bags do work great for some things, but not as well for, say, berries at the farmers' market. :)

green LA girl

Oh, that BlogHer bag!

Liz Rizzo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:19:07 -0500

I totally love it! It is perfect for groceries.

The best thing about cloth bags is that they are SO much better for holding groceries than paper OR plastic. :)

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess.

The METHOD plastic rehab bag

Diana — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:08:30 -0500

The METHOD plastic rehab bag is my current favorite. I use it for just about everything. I'm thinking about hitting Goodwill and looking for some wool sweaters and making some cute felted bags for fall though.

My biggest downfall is produce bags, most of the time I just pick up my produce without a bag and put them in my big bag free -- but for things I buy in large quantities (apples, pears) and things that you just can't toss in there free (mushrooms) I really need to get some reusable produce bags.

Diana Prichard

http://www.dianaprichard.com

http://www.facebook.com/dianaprichard

http://www.twitter.com/dianamarie

http://oftheprincessandthepea.blogspot.com

good reminder and cute bags

Michelle McKinley — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:49:12 -0500

I use my reusable totes (that I got at the grocery store and are NOT as cute as the ones you link to) for library books, and sometimes even an overnight bag. (gasp!) yeah, I need a cute bag.

http://superfabuloushousewife.blogspot.com/

BYO bag: Declutter your life from disposable bags

greenlagirl — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:22:09 -0500

Don't tote a reusable tote yet? You're way behind the curve. Go beyond the paper-or-plastic nonsense and earn a nickel or dime back as "bag credit" when you shop at most grocery stores. To get inspired to reduce and reuse, check out what handy reusable bags green-thinking bloggers are toting eco-style:

1. Get a bag that shows off your personal style. I'm in a bit of a bag-identity crisis right now, because my favorite show-off bag was my cute red neoprene wine tote that I got complimented on all the time -- but I've stopped drinking for the time being. For now, I mostly use my Plastic Rehab tote.

What bag defines your style? Maria at Demeter's Garden loves the tote she got at H-Mart, an Asian grocery store, because "it expresses my feelings on good food." I like this one because it's a gorgeous eggplant color! And my fellow BlogHer contributing editor Liz Rizzo at Everyday Goddess has not one, not two, but 15 -- yes, 15 -- reusable bags, ranging from corporate freebies to a BlogHer '08 tote to everything in between. I hope they each get a little reusable love --

2. Get a bag you won't forget. That means you need a compactifiable bag you can carry in your purse to unfurl at a moment's notice. This little bag will come in especially handy at IKEA, which has nixed plastic bags entirely!

Zadi Diaz of EpicFu fame, for example, carries her Cool California tote in her purse. My fellow MNN blogger Robin Shreeves at A Little Greener Every Day says the original Chico bag (right) is her favorite: "they last forever, are washable, and fold up small." I use an Envirosax tote that folds up into the size of a sushi roll. What about you?

3. Get rid of the bag inside the bag. Remembered to take your tote to the farmers' market? Next time, go a step further and bring smaller bags for your fruits and veggies too so you're not filling up that reusable tote with a whole bunch of disposable flimsy produce bags. Whether you buy organic cotton produce bags or simply reuse the produce bags you've already got, keep working on decluttering your life of unnecessary disposables.

Why reuse? Besides collecting nickels and dimes, decluttering your kitchen and not wasting hard earned money on unnecessary storage gadgets like these, you'll keep turtles from suffocating, birdies from dropping dead, surfers from getting tangled up in trash, and the ocean from turning into one big garbage patch. Get your neighbors involved and eventually, you'll start saving your tax dollars -- because a lot of those get spent trying to clean up everything from city gutters to beaches to waste center machines that get gunked up with the disposables.

Want to show off your own reusable bag? Link to a photo or post of your bag in the comments!
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BlogHer Contributing Editor Siel will tote her BYO bag and mug to BlogHer '09! She also blogs at greenLAgirl.com.