I stood in line at the grocery store the other day behind a lady who was paper bag happy. Â She had purchased 3 boxes of take out fried chicken from the deli and a boxed cake from the bakery. Â Even though each of these were already in a container and didn’t even need a bag (the chicken boxes even had handles!), she insisted on a separate brown paper bag for each item.
This is on top of the other grocery items she purchased, which I did not notice as I had walked up in line just as the discussion about “the right way” to bag the chicken was going on with the bag boy. Â Is there a “right way” to bag take out chicken, by the way?
Just wondering.
In total, there were at least twelve brown paper bags in that shopping cart, each only about half full of items.I must have been unknowingly staring in disbelief at the situation unfold because the checkout girl looked at me and said, “Is everything ok?” Â Â I shook my head and said to her, “Wow, I hope that lady is going to recycle all those bags!”
Fact is, even if those bags do get recycled (they probably won’t be), it is still a disgrace to use that much disposable material just to carry your shopping home from the store. Â Â It takes a lot of energy in a pollution spewing factory to recycle all those bags when use of them can be avoided entirely just by developing the habit of bringing them yourself.
A number of years ago, my New Year’s Resolution was to start bringing my own bags to the store. Â I had been using brown paper bags over and over again for awhile (and then recycling them when they got tattered), but I decided this was still not good enough and I needed to get reusable bags for all my shopping instead. This included not just the grocery store but also Home Depot, Target, and other shops I went to.
I was actually quite surprised at how challenging it was to develop this very simple new habit.
I forgot over and over again to bring the bags into the store and even scratched my head as to what to do with the bags when I got into the checkout aisle. Â Was proper etiquette to hand the bags to the cashier, or do I nonchalantly toss them over into the bagging area?
An “easy” resolution that I thought would be such a quick success turned out to be a 3 month ordeal of relearning my shopping habits entirely! Â I persisted despite the frequent setbacks and here is what I learned (I am now very comfortable with my new habit, I’m happy to say):
7 Tips for an Easy Transition to to Reusable Bags
- Buy enough bags! Â I made this mistake for several weeks before realizing I needed about 5 bags in the car. Â The reason is that when I go shopping, I usually make all the rounds at once. Â I typically use 2 bags at the grocery store, so if you only have two bags in the car, you won’t have any for the quick trip into Target or the department store.
- Put bags in both cars! Â Another mistake I made was only putting the reusable bags in my car. Â It took me several misfires before I realized that I actually do a lot of shopping using my husband’s car because mine is already in the garage after dinner and his is typically still in the driveway. Â I like to shop after dinner sometimes which means I would prefer the convenience of using his car as I ran out the door.
- Keep the bags in the car, not in the house! Â I can’t tell you how many times I arrived at the store only to realize the bags were at home sitting on the kitchen table. Â Keep them in the car at all times as you never know when you are going to need to run a quick errand.
- After you unload your purchases in the house, take the bags right back out to the car! Â Or, at least put them right by your keys, wallet, or purse so you don’t forget to take them back out to the car the very next time you go somewhere.
- Don’t be ashamed to say to the cashier – “Oops, I forgot my bags, let me run out to the car and get them!” Yes, it’s true. Â I actually did this a few times purposely embarrassing myself and making the clerk wait for me so that I would not forget to bring the bags into the store from the car again!
- Have bags that are for produce and meats and other bags for “clean” items like clothes, shampoo etc. Â Â Â Different colors or designs on each bag helps with telling which bag is for what purpose.
- Don’t forget to wash the bags every now and then. Â Â Reusable bags can get nasty bacteria in them after only a few trips to the store, so make sure to wash them in a mild detergent every week or two. This may seem incredibly obvious, but surprisingly, most people do not seem to realize the importance of doing it.
If you haven’t yet made the switch to reusable bags, I would encourage you to consider it. Perhaps these tips can help you avoid some of the surprising pitfalls I encountered as I made the transition.
And, please don’t use the excuse that you somehow need the bags given out at the store. The plastic bags at the store are made from petroleum that takes centuries to degrade and the paper ones are made from trees that take decades to grow. Â If you must have bags for use at home, buy biodegradable eco-plastic ones instead.
It really is a lot easier using reusable bags than dealing with the stacks of brown paper bags or plastic bags that needed to be recycled. Â I don’t claim to be perfect in this area as I occasionally need one bag here or there due to an unforeseen circumstance, but I have definitely eliminated 99% of my need for store bags.
Believe it or not, this is much less stressful way to shop once you get the hang of it!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
have cats or dogs and sew. you can make 2 bags out of 1 food bag. cut in half. use seem binding to sew edge and use what u like for handle or cut small amount from top of each bag and bind edge with seem binding to. recycling at its best. don’t like the dog or cat food label then turn inside out and its white. also you can square corners on bottom by folding up corner and sewing it too.
I guess I’m probably in the minority here, but I did not care for the snarky tone of this post. Maybe she was delivering food to different places or maybe she has a legitimate reason to have that many bags. Maybe (like me) she is a teacher who uses them instead of brand new paper for some art projects. You don’t know. But in any case, I guess it’s not our place to judge & gossip. I totally get the concern, but words are powerful & it is a situation that could be discussed in a positive, rather than degrading way.
Ditto. This could have been said differently and was kind of a turn off to me, too.
I was that lady in the store. You don’t know my reasons for my behavior, however I did nothing wrong. Nor do I feel it necessary to explain my actions to you, a complete stranger who knows nothing of me or my life. Perhaps your eco friendly action is laudable, but leading with example and kindness will do more to convert others than snide comments and incredulous facial expressions.
Sometimes people are buying for others, such as residents of a retirement home or their adult children (or other relatives or friends) who live in different homes or some colleagues at work who have desks in different places. If I saw someone asking for separate bags and not filling them all the way, I’d not judge them as being wasteful until I knew more about the situation. But for myself, of course I bring my own bags and pack them as well. All of us together can make a difference.
I have bags in the car but they are in the trunk area and I remember they are there AFTER I’m done shopping – unless it’s Trader Joe’s who encourages you bring your own bag. I’m surprised it’s not encouraged more as it costs the store quite a bit for bags. Yes, a learned habit we must try to work on. Thanks for the tips and good post, Sarah!
Actually it doesn’t cost the store anything to provide bags for customers – they just build it into the pricing of their products, so customers are paying for it as a “hidden” cost. It would be fairer to charge the bags separately at the till so customers can see it as an extra cost, but of course that might give people an incentive to bring their own bags which would slow down the cashiers.
The small organic store I shop at encourages people to donate their unwanted used bags to the store, which they use to bag purchases for customers who don’t bring their own. Pretty rad eh? (as we say in Canada)
good points from the cashier. I often stop at my local coop on the fly and forget my reusable bags. I do not shame myself for this. I re-use brown bags all the time, and then recycle them. Whats the difference…. better in my hands than someone who wont do that. Also, in stores with plastic bags they insist on putting 1 item in a bag so you have 100 bags.. that’s annoying… so i try to consolidate.
one thing i wouldn’t do though, is stare at someone and judge them for what they choose to do and buy then blog about it. If you felt so strongly about it perhaps you should have said something to her.
Make or purchase canvas bags in various sizes, such as small ones for produce and large ones like the regular size grocery bags, as well as some extra large ones for bigger items. Toss them in the laundry once in awhile. They’ll last practically forever, and when they finally aren’t usable anymore, toss them in the compost pile!
I mostly use reusable bags. Sometimes, if I am only getting a few items I’ll throw one over each arm and just shop with the bags.
We depend on those plastic grocery bags as poop scooper bags for walking our dog!! My teenage son once said to me. “Mom, you need to grocery shop because, we are out of poop bags.” The more direct farm/csa/farmers market buying we do, the more rare those bags are in our house. So, we repurpose everyone for cleaning up after our dog.
One thing that I have found helpful is to keep one or two of those bags that roll into very small and light balls inside my purse at all times for those emergency occasions when I forget the other bags. Those small bags are not the ones that I normally use, just a backup. They have saved me many times. It’s amazing how much those bags can hold.