reuse
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Toast: Bling my Bag
Posted by aunt mommy on 17 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: 93DB70, TOAST, politics, reprints, reuse
Author’s Note: I wrote this out a long time ago, before I came up with the original TOAST (Think of a Something Thursday) format. We’ve come a long way, baybee!
TOAST: Think of a Something Thursday
Long before I acquired my stable of shopping bags, and when I bothered to remember, I’d tell a store clerk trying to bag one or two items: “No thank you”. A habit borne of managing to accumulate too much junk (which I still do, adventure-girl/packrat that I am) but a habit that also fit in nicely with the Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
When I was a kid, the grocery stores in my area were dominated by paper sacks. And that was it for a long time. They were great, useful - book covers, art papers, shipping paper, patterns, “canvas”. When plastic bags started coming around along with the advent of “bag your own” stores in my neck of the woods, the bags were your typical two handled affair seen today. Us kids adapted and used them to make simple box kites. Tie a string, find a gust of wind, and go. No sticks, no tails, no tape and paper and glue … But no sharks teeth or dragons, either. Nothing to paint or enhance. I think after one or two gos we were done and bored.
I started out my latest foray into self-bagging and non-plastic bagging like I do most things. In fits and spurts. (The hub asked me the other day how long my to-do list was. I asked in return, “which volume?”.) But I rounded up a sampling of totes I had anyway (I prefer simple totes instead of most diaper bags) along with the inexpensive reusable bags I mentioned the other day.
Surely there was one perfect bag to hold my ‘fancy’ cheeses, wines, crusty loafs of bread, and swirly pops for the kids, right? Be it a quick trip for a parents-only dinner or the restocking of the hurricane pantry, just grab a cloth bag and go, yes? No, not so much. Continue Reading »
Cloth Bags, Part II: Eclectic Boogaloo
Posted by aunt mommy on 15 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: 93DB70, reuse
Mare noted that she picked up a small foldable bag that fits in the glove box. I’ve got those in my eclectic collection; they make great diaper bags for the daily tote to and from school. Diapers go in the bag to school, are dropped off, and the bag is shoved in her cubby bucket without taking a lot of space. It even crams back into its own clip-on bag if I get the notion to stuff things in things (or need a diversion of “magic” for the little ones). I got these (I have two) at Claire’s during a buy X get Y sale.
Continue Reading »
And I wore plaid flannel shirts before Nirvana, too!
Posted by aunt mommy on 14 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: 93DB70, mundaneities, reuse
Standing in line at a lunch counter the other day, I stopped the cashier from bagging my lunch box. “Going green, eh?” asked the guy in front of me. I just nodded and smiled; on the one hand I’m kinda green, on the other hand, I just drove 3 miles to pick up a plate of chicken, beans, and rice I could have crocked up myself if I’d planned the week a little better. But that better planned week would have meant my next stop wasn’t the grocery store, either.
Last winter, I popped into a women’s fashion store to pick up a glittery little shawl to spruce up an older little black dress for the company holiday party. When I asked the cashier to not bag it, and put the shawl in a cloth shopping bag I’d brought with me, her eyes got wide and she warned me that people might think I was shoplifting. I reminded her that I had the receipt and that I was sure I’d be fine.
My local JCPennys stores started selling lovely large cloth bags for $1.49 (now 79¢). After raiding the clearance racks for bargains , I added a bag to the top of the pile. The cashier scanned it in, folded it up, and put it in a plastic bag. “Um,” I interrupted as she started to scan my other purchases. “Could you just put the clothes in the shopping bag I just bought? Please?”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to do that,” she responded.
“Well, that’s what they’re for,” I replied.
She checked with her supervisor, who gave her the go ahead, but it was clear she thought I was completely nuts.
Two years after I bought my first 99¢ cloth bag at an Albertsons store in Southern California, they’re finally everywhere. Before the cheap, convenient bags became widely available, I toted around various random cloth bags, usually give-aways from conferences or picked up at garage sales and thrift stores. They bewildered and annoyed the baggers and clerks, but in general, people are starting to come around.
My friend Mare recently asked for opinions on cloth bags, so here’s my reusable round-up. Continue Reading »