I am convinced that those cloth shopping bags at checkout stands are doing more harm than good.
Hear me out on this. I have, as a good citizen, purchased about 4 of said shopping bags. And I love that I can get so much into them and how nice and solid they are when I use them. I should say, the 9 times a year I ACTUALLY remember to use them.
Seriously, ’cause I need one more thing to remember in my life??
Here’s how it works in my world: I make out my shopping list. I go to the store. Even with the words typed permanently and **’d at the top of my list– DON’T FORGET BAGS!! I forget them nearly every time. I have tried putting them on the seat next to me as a visual reminder. Unfortunately, I leave them there all the time (so I’ll remember to grab them anytime I go to a store) and my brain doesn’t even REGISTER them anymore. I put them on the hooks by the door going out to the car, where I FORGET them for weeks at a time.
I only remember them when I see the STACKS of cloth bags for sale at the register.
I don’t think I am that different from anyone else. I mean, really, don’t you get a thrill of a rush when you remember your bags? You know why? ‘Cause it’s a NEW experience! Yes, yes, I am sure that about 3 of you have figured out a good system for remembering to take your bags shopping with you. (Maybe using them as clothing? So you can be sure you always have them with you? And then you can feel great that you have not only REDUCED, but REUSED, too! Woot!)
I think the stores are going to have to take a hard line approach to this whole bag issue for people like me. Sell me the cloth bags and then completely DO AWAY WITH the plastic ones. I bet I’d only have to carry my canned goods out in my bare hands (with a toddler dragging a bag of apples) ONE TIME to be enticed to remember my bags the next time.
Unless, of course, the stores are actually HAPPY to keep selling people like me bag after bag after bag, using ‘green guilt‘ to do so. Because, they can’t actually be glad of the whole greenhouse gas effect that the making of plastic (and cloth??) bags are creating. No, no. The stores WANT to help the environment. They are SAD when I forget my bags and then ask me if I’d like to purchase (another) set of cloth bags, instead of using those evil, evil, free plastic ones.
And what am I supposed to use as a trash can liner? Or to tie up poopy diapers in? Oooo, maybe I can use the cloth bags I keep forgetting! At least they’d get used!
Anyone got a pattern for a nice poncho?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I posted about this very topic a while back, but yours made me giggle…Mine was more of what won’t or can’t you give up for going green…
Going to read more…you made me laugh
it helps if you’re an abuelita; otherwise, most of us just use the plastic bags and recycle/throw them away.
we have a few of those abuelita bags around the house, gathering dust.
why do i get the feeling that there are about 1,000 better ways to be “eco-friendly?”
sheesh.
Ooh, I am glad I'm not the only one. I am being squeezed out of my home by these cloth bags. I never, ever remember them, as my shopping tends to be spontaneous. I also worry that people may think they are my actual handbag, and that I am a bag lady, if an eco-aware one. i feel self-conscious schlepping into town carrying the red "Christmas Greetings from Marks and Spencer" one, as it is well, nigh-on February, and the one from Boots the chemist has "Gorgeous" on it, which would have me contravening the trades description act. If it said, "Dishevelled", that might sit easier. Yeah..at least the free ones can be used for nappies or other rubbish dumping tasks. If the aforementioned are biodegradeable, then that might be all that's required. Still, we all feel too guilty to jettison the big cotton and jute bags, so I suppose that just means we are living in our own personal shopping bag landfill sites, which don't impinge on anyone else. I will try harder to remember mine, though. I must have about fifteen of them, laughing behind their handles in every inch of useful potentially free space in my abode…. >-<
I have this exact same problem. But for the four months I was without a car, I would take a backpack as I rode the bike around. If I kept a couple of cloth shopping bags in there, then I’d never miss.
But now that I’m driving again, it’s hopeless. I can barely even remember to take my weekly accumulation of pocket change to King Soopers to use in the checkout machine!
I am so glad to hear I am not the only one. I do have to say that since I posted this blog, I have done a better job of remembering the dang cloth bags. Though they are piled a *tad* high on the seat next to me.
Toby, you only confirm my theory about the bags working if they act as clothing, since you do kinda “wear” a backpack. Is that a stretch? I really thing the future of cloth bags lie in the hands of whoever can make them into something we can all keep with us all the time.
Rowan–you crack me up. :)