Lift Up Your Hearts!

In Switzerland you must bring your own bags to the grocery store, or buy them there.  We've tried variations on that theme here, with little success.  Thirty years ago one of our stores in New York started using cardboard boxes instead of bags, and paid five cents for every one you brought back and reused.  That the store went out of business not much later was probably not due to that particular policy, but it certainly put an end to it.  At one time or another the stores here in Florida would pay a nickel for each reused bag, and some still do.  But, frankly, five cents isn't enough incentive one way or another.

Then several stores began selling reusable "green" bags.  A good idea, but I couldn't see buying them, even for the low $1 price, when we had plenty of bags at home I could use—especially since the new bags are made in China.  I don't boycott Chinese products altogether, but their dominance makes me nervous, and I like to find alternatives when I can.  Besides, it just seems ridiculous to ship products halfway across the world in the name of protecting the environment.  Despite having bags at home that would do, however, I never got around to making the switch...

...until a dear and practical family member gave me three Trader Joe's bags for Christmas.  Knowing my aversion to Chinese bags, she found me some made in Vietnam—not much better, perhaps, but at least an alternative.  They were better than our existing bags:  the right shape for groceries, and one was even insulated for cold items.  Soon I was hooked, and even acquired some more (Chinese) bags when our store offered them "free with purchase" on a couple of occasions.  They live in the back of the car and are thus always handy, which is a good thing because if I had to remember to bring them with me I'd forget half the time.  On the occasions when I walk to the grocery store I still follow in the tradition of my father, and use my good ol' L.L. Bean pack basket.

There's no economic incentive to use the reusable bags, not even the aforementioned nickels.  I know myself:  I wouldn't continue the practice if it were difficult or awkward.  But it's not.  The reusable bags are a lot more fun to handle than the floppy plastic ones:  they're sturdy, hold more, stand upright, and don't accumulate in large quantities that must be returned to the store for recycling.  What amazes me is how many of those plastic grocery store bags I'm now saving.  After only a few months of using the new bags, I deliberately left them in the car for one trip because I had run out of plastic bags at home.  Such a situation would have been unthinkable last year.