I know I should bring my own reusable grocery bags instead of accumulating endless plastic ones. While some of the plastic bags have a second life as receptacles for kitty litter or as lining for small wastebaskets, the majority get one use and then it’s off to the plastic bag recycle bin.
I have some reusable grocery bags already. Sometimes they are even in my car when I go shopping. I think there are two reasons I tend not to use them.
The first is that I forget to hand them over to the cashier before she or he starts bagging—and then it seems to be too late. Once I handed the bag over late, thinking that, well, the next bag’s worth of groceries could go in it, and the cashier actually took the groceries OUT of the plastic bag and put them in my bag. I totally did not intend that, but couldn’t seem to stop her in time. So the plastic bag had already been used AND she’d bagged those groceries twice. What a waste.
The other reason is that it seems so inconvenient for bagging. Plastic bags come with those metal racks to hold them open, and paper bags stand up by themselves, making bagging easy (or at least easier.) Reusable bags seem to come in two kinds—stiff and not terribly washable, or washable but floppy. I want a bag I can wash every now and again, but I hate handing the cashier a floppy bag because I feel like I’m creating extra work.
(Note: with the trend toward increasing self-service, at airports, banks, and now grocery stores, perhaps we will soon be bagging all our own groceries. They already do that in some other countries. I can’t say I’m enthusiastic at the prospect. And while it might cut down on carpal tunnel in cashiers, it seems more likely that it would just cut down on the number of cashiers, and so the number of cashier jobs available.)
So, regardless of who actually does the bagging, here are my criteria for the ideal reusable fabric grocery bag:
1. Washable.
2. Stiff enough to stand open.
3. Folds when not in use. (Otherwise, baskets might work.)
I imagine my ideal bag resembling a paper bag—wide, flat-bottomed, short-handled. Actually, the length of the handles depends on whether you are just carrying bags in and out of your car, or having to take them on the bus. Short handles are ideal if you are carrying a bag in each hand, but no use if you want to sling the bag over your shoulder. But a shoulder bag can’t be filled quite as full, I think. Since I usually grocery-shop by car, I want short handles.
Bonus points: Can be made with materials I already have.
One way to make a bag stiff is to use stiff material. For Grocery Bag Version 1, I made the exterior from some leftover canvas (or maybe it was heavy muslin), with piping along the edges (hoping that would add stiffness.) (Pattern was a modified version of The Spruce’s grocery bag.) I lined it with remnants of a floral sheet, and put a piece of cardboard on the flat bottom.
The result, as you can see, is still very floppy. Presumably a really heavy canvas would have given me something like a tote from L.L. Bean, which is definitely stiff enough to stand up, but not good for washing or folding.
Grocery Bag Version 2 is a lightweight bag made just from the floral fabric with no lining. I did put strips of the muslin/canvas along the edges in place of piping. The goal here was to use a cardboard insert made from a cereal box to create a boxy shape. The difficulty is trying to come up with an insert that folds away neatly. This one sort of folds. Not nearly well enough. It might also be too lightweight when faced with canned goods. I haven’t tested it.
I also made this bag shorter, so it would be easier to load. This might have a cost in terms of what groceries it can hold—a baguette would probably fall out.
There must be all sorts of grocery bag plans out there that I didn’t find in my relatively short search. Maybe a removeable folding wire frame, or a stiff exterior with removable washable lining?
Has anyone found one that meets all my requirements? Please comment.
Ravens and Pears 