Dinnercraft helps bring your (and our) protracted adolescence to an end. Our authors cover topics ranging from cooking and eating, to home and garden, to crafting and DiY, and all the rest of the things you find yourself caring about these days.
Carebags: Kicking Plastic to the Curb, One Veggie at a Time
I am unashamed to confess that I am hopelessly addicted to cloth shopping bags. I have well over 30 of them breeding in my pantry, and continue to find ways to bring more home with me. Like the crazy cat hoarding lady down the street, I cannot have too many of them, and won’t part with any. I have even gone so far as to procure hideous vintage pillow cases, and cunningly upcycled them into matchy-matchy cotton bags for days when I’m feeling uber-crunchy.
The bags ride along in the car with me on days when I escape the house, and flee to the freedom of the grocery store to wantonly blow money on food. I have managed to nearly eliminate my plastic bag consumption. The odd rogue bag still infiltrates our home via my husband, but I no longer have bags full of bags hanging around under my sink, threatening to choke the life out of innocent dolphins at some unspecified point in the future.
Yet there was one area in which I couldn’t slay the plastic bag demon, and it plagued my conscience every time I went to the store: plastic produce bags. I tried giving them the heave-ho by just dumping my loose veggies on the conveyor belt, but that simply pissed off the clerks and people behind me in line. I tried to stop buying produce at large stores were the bags were the norm, and opted to go to smaller markets where the bags were not as plentiful. I grew my own food. I went to farmer’s markets. Try as I might, I couldn’t completely avoid taking plastic home with me.
A few weeks ago, I was poking around in the potato section of the local produce aisle, and spotted the answer to my searching – reusable fabric produce bags! On sale! *Trumpets in heaven resound* Carebags, a locally manufactured product, brilliantly enable you to kick the plastic produce baggie habit to the curb. 5 units come smartly packaged in a cotton carrying case, which you can clip on to your larger recycled shopping bags for convenience. Not only do they work well to tote and contain produce, but they also function effectively as bulk food storage bags. Easy to wash, convenient to use, Carebags have had a positive impact on my shopping habits. I’m in love, and I’m scheming to find a way to justify having more of them around. My new mission in life is to spread the good news of Carebags, and convert other green-minded shoppers to the totally plastic-free way of gathering groceries. What are you waiting for? Join me!
Tia, I really need those! I looked around their website before, and think I’ll just have to have some shipped across ye olde border. I haven’t seen anything like Carebags here.
“upcycle” = great term. yours?
Kristen – they’re worth the investment. I briefly contemplated making my own, and then smacked myself across the face because I really don’t have time for that. I’ll make the investment, support a local business, and share the good news. If more people buy, the price will go down, right?
Jillian – sadly, I cannot claim upcycle as my own. There are massive boards and communities on the web devoted to upcycling, and I occasionally scoot in, look around, realize that I’m not talented or creative enough to play with them, and go back to playing Farmville on Facebook.
Tia, I share your love. I still buy bags even though I have more than I will ever need. Still doesn’t stop me from eyeing up those raffia bags with the cute designs.
What a nice review thanks so much. We now have drawstrings with most of our bags and also sell fetching green singles.
Diana
Carebags
Thank you, Diana! I am really enjoying the bags, which stash so nicely in my purse. I will definitely keep my eyes out for the drawstring version and the singles! They will make an excellent stocking stuffer!
The single green Carebags will be up on our website this week.
Regular Carebags are also now sold with drawstrings due to popular demand.
Keep spreading the word. Long lasting re-useables are the way to go.
Cheers,
Diana
What to do with your plastic bags:
http://www.pieandcoffee.org/2005/11/17/how-to-knit-a-plastic-bag/
http://etsylabs.blogspot.com/2007/05/long-overdue-fusing-plastic-bag.html
For the first: basically anything you can make weaving you can make from weaving plastic bags. One guy made a wedding gown. Theres also the idea of water bottle holders, netting/padding around glass baby bottles, etc.
The second was just cool