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.
If you used a heavy cardboard (or corrugated plastic campaign sign) insert that fit along the bottom and the two narrow sides (the ones without handles) it might stand up better. (Basically rotate your insert 90 degrees and make it heavier.) Instead of folds, you could make duct tape joints along the creases, so it would fold flat, as long as the sides aren't higher than the bag is wide.
ReplyDeletePerhaps add downward facing pockets (or a strip of elastic) near the top to tuck the edges of the insert in. This would help hold the bag open and allow for easy removal of the insert.
And as you know, I just happen to have some coroplast handy...
DeleteGood luck!
ReplyDelete