A BYO bag solution for all this Earth Day

If you do one thing for this Earth Day, I'd advise this for your own sanity as well as financial benefit -- in addition to environmental goodness: Get a Bring Your Own Bag system in place once and for all, so you're never caught empty handed.

First, let me go into why this one action will prevent stress and save you money. Then I'll show you how easy it is to be bag-ready at all times.

Plastic bags are slowly becoming a relic in California. The disposables have already been banned in San Francisco and Oakland, for one. Santa Monica's well on its way to enacting its own ban. And Bakersfield, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz are considering similar measures. Even the Calif. assembly's considering a bag fee.

Besides the state and local government initiatives, there's the corporate ones. As of this Earth Day, Whole Foods will no longer offer plastic bags. IKEA will getting rid of all disposable bags, period, come August 2008. And while most grocery stores will still be saying "paper or plastic" for a while, many of these -- including Ralphs -- will still give you a nickel back for bringing your own bag.

So adapt now to prevent headaches -- and to avoid getting nickeled and dimed -- later. Here's how:

1. Put most of your reusable bags in the vehicle you use to get to and from your grocery shopping. For most of you, this will be your car. For the more intrepid of you, this'll be that trailer attached to your bike, or the "basket on wheels" type thing you roll over to your farmers' market. This vehicle needs to be where the bags "belong."

Do NOT have a spot in the house where you keep the reusable bags; not having a designated in-house spot will remind you to always "return" the bags to your vehicle after you unload your groceries.

 2. Keep one minimizable bag in your purse or other favorite bag, like a laptop bag or backpack. Organic cotton tote bags are great, but they're rather bulky, and it's the rare person who'll tote one of those around everywhere. Instead, invest in one bag that converts into a teeny object, and keep that in your purse or bag as a standard item, like a lipstick or condoms.

The one downside of these bags is that they tend to be made of synthetic materials. This is why I advise you just get one of these -- and reuse it forever and maybe even pass it down to future generations :P A few options:

flip & tumble. (above left) Made of ripstop nylon, this cute bag can be "flipped" into a cute ball-shaped object -- great for an impromptu game of catch or for juggling, if you have a couple of them.

Envirosax. Made of polyester, Envirosax fold up into what the company describes as "the size of a piece of sushi." This is the bag that sits folded and buttoned up at the bottom of my purse. I unfurl it when I need it -- like I did today at Co-opportunity.

ChicoBags. (below left) Made of nylon, ChocoBags can be stuffed into its "integrated pouch." The bags come with a carabiner, so you can attach the pouch to your beltloop, if that look jives with your personal style. ChicoBags also notes on its website that it has a recycling program to repurposed old bags into door mats, dog beds and prayer flags -- but I can't find any info about where to send the old bags on the website.

I know the boys are gonna say they don't carry purses (though I've noticed that more of you guys do these days) and usually don't carry other bags either. I feel your pain -- and encourage you to use this awesome business idea of mine: Create a bag that folds flat into the shape of a short stack of bills, which can be fit into any regular wallet -- maybe even a recycled Jimi.

Make millions as plastic bag bans gain popularity around the world, then email and thank me --

Top photo courtesy of envirowoman

Comments

[Joan Elmore]

We have a new reusable shopping bag that we are debuting at the nyc go green expo. It is a flexible fashionable bag but it is socially concious. They are made in New Orleans by Katrina Surviors and all of our vendors are outsourced there. We are giving much needed work and dollars to a struggling economy in New Orleans. The bag is called itslaktik and stretches and holds twice as much as a plastic bag. There are great colors and part of our proceeds go to Hope House in New Orleans. Our website is www.whatsurbag-usa.com but it is not finished yet. If you are in NYC at the last week end in April come and say hello.

[Rachel]

A good place to keep bags in the house is on the interior front doorknob. You have to touch them as you go to walk to the farmers market or Albertsons so it is hard to forget.

[jeremy]

if you bother going to the auto show you can easily stock up on FREE high quality bags that will last well over a year.

this past autoshow Mercedes-Benz passed out nice black reusuable grocery bag like bags. me and my wife came up to the display booth about 6 times each and will never have to buy those bags again

[sheila]

and then we all have to go BUY trash bags! either way, we are using plastic bags. at least if we use them for groceries, then for trash, we are using them twice, and the grocery ones are MUCH thinner, so they use less plastic than commercial trash bags.

people don't think beyond short-term knee-jerk solutions which don't end up a "net" benefit to the planet. Sure, if you don't use all your grocery bags for trash, then you should recycle them, but if you do, then how is that worse than creating demand for new, thick trash bags which have drawstrings and come in small cardboard boxes?

[m]

I'm with you on this Shelia. I know some people (including myself) sometimes use bags from other items, like corn chips or from my bulk items for trash as well. I purchased trash bags for the first time in my life this year, partially because of the lack of other plastic bags coming into my house and the *requirement* by my apartment manager to throw all trash away in tied plastic bags.

I think there is a degree of public education on how to utilize plastic bags that needs to go on. I remember the first time I saw a Target plastic bag with the printed suggestions on it of what to do with it when you were done carrying your items home. Since my household had been reusing plastic bags my whole life, I didn't realize the idea of reusing them had to be introduced to people.

I recently read a book where they stated that the people in the U.S. spend more money on trash bags than some very large percentage of people in other countries spend on food! I really wish here we would do things that also lessened our trash generation (like having someplace where apartment dwellers can compost their veggie waste instead of tossing it. I'd compost it myself but I don't have time or a garden to use the compost in!)