Reusable Tote Bags

Reusable bags are a great green option.

The average American family uses more than 300 plastic bags a year which requires more than 3 gallons of crude oil to make them, creating a huge strain on our natural resources. And as we found out, plastic bags are hard to recycle which means they will probably just end up in the garbage.

I love my reusable bags. Every time I go into the store I feel like I’m making a big difference with this one little thing.

I probably have more than a dozen bags. Do you need that many, probably not. Do I really need that many, again, probably not. I ended up with so many because when I first started using them I would forget them in my car a lot. So instead of going back out to the car when I was in Trader Joe’s with Dylan, who at the time was 2, I would just buy another bag or two. Hey, it made sense to me then, not so much now I suppose.

Of the bags I have my favorites are the ChicoBags. They were the first ones I bought and I mainly bought them because they were created by a man here in Chico CA. I bought them online from greenfeet also a store in Chico before being an online only store. The bags are made out of nylon which makes them really strong and easy to clean, you can even throw them in the washing machine if you need to. They hold 20 pounds of groceries which means I can fit about 2 plastic bags worth of groceries into 1 ChicoBag. I love that because it means fewer trips back and forth to the car to unload them.

I just got an e-mail from reusablebags.com about a new Acme bag they have made out of recycled cotton. You have no idea how excited this made me. A reusable bag made out of recycled material, that’s my version of perfection. Hey, don’t judge, this could be you someday. However, since I don’t actually need any more bags I’m trying to control myself. But really if I don’t try it out how will I know if you’ll like it? So really I’d be doing it for you, right? Well, I might just have to take one for the team then. Or would it be buy one?