Reusable
grocery bags are the best way for anyone to reduce needless waste, pollution, and general litter with a minimum amount of effort.
Using reusable grocery
bags will immediately reduce the trash added to expanding landfills.
Reusable grocery bags
help to save our forests and prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals who eat
discarded plastic bags mistaking them for food.
Our shopping bags are made of 100% cotton. The fabric weight is
a strong 10 ounce canvas duck and can easily hold 40 pounds
(19 kilos). Reusable bags have many other uses beyond toting groceries such as packing up to go to your summer cottage, bringing food and gifts to a family event, or shopping at the hardware store where almost everything is too heavy or sharp for disposable bags.
Reusable
grocery bags also make great holiday or birthday gifts.
Message on our NotAWaste Bag:
Americans consume 100 billion plastic shopping bags every
year. Over 500 billion are consumed worldwide and about
4 billion become general litter.
Plastic bags don't "biodegrade", they break down
into tiny toxic bits which contaminate soil and water. They
can take 1,000 years to break down.
Fourteen million trees were cut in 1999 to produce the
ten billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year.
Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons
of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts
of energy and 7,000 gallons of water.
Reusable Shopping Bags - Buyer's Guide
| There are many more options for reusable
bags now, especially since the big chain stores see
the writing on the wall about their disposable bags.
We believe that using your own bags can actually make
the trip home with your groceries more pleasant as well
as being a smart thing to do for the planet. But you
need to have the right bags or it will simply be a nuisance
and might even be worse for the environment. Be sure
to evaluate cost in perspective with other important
attributes. |
| Dimensions: |
The ubiquitous paper grocery bag remains
the best overall model for any general purpose shopping
bag. The size has stood the test of time and only the
construction needs to be updated for reusability. Make
sure the bags you buy are made from a pattern that has
actual depth to the design. Don't buy bags that are
simply two pieces of cloth sewn around the perimeter!
A good guide for bag dimensions: 5 1/2"
x 13" x 16" tall |
| Material: |
Two different materials stand out from
the crowd for both environmental and practical reasons,
natural canvas (100% cotton) and recycled PET (typically
made from beverage bottles). Canvas is durable, washable,
biodegradable, renewable and more cost effective while
recycled PET is very strong, washable and resistant
to soiling but is typically about 30% more costly. |
| Handles: |
Handles should be a durable material
that is wide and thick enough to keep them from biting
into your hands if the bag is loaded up and heavy. Many
handles we have seen are too long which make the bag
harder to carry and lift. They should be only about
6" from the top of the bag and need to be very
well stitched to the bag. |
| Bottom: |
A bag with a flat bottom is very important.
Some designs have cardboard that folds down to make
a flat bottom but that will quickly wear out. It is
more important that the pattern of the bag itself has
a flat bottom because it will load better and the contents
will be more apt to keep it sitting upright in the car
and on the counter while unpacking. |
| Quality: |
Beware of cheap bags at the candy aisle.
They are likely to be a bit too small, poorly made,
and/or made of a polymer-based material that is not
recycled and will not biodegrade after failing from
a limited number of uses. |
 |
Also, exclusively in
the NotAMall Store
EcoChic
Fashionable Reusable Bag
Also available in
3 and 6 packs
at special pricing!
Our bags meet
all of the criteria
listed above!
|
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spam, no selling lists, no abuses period!
Shop with confidence. New items are
added regularly.
