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paper or plastic, ma'am?
May. 12th, 2008 03:57 pmThis weekend, for the very first time, I did an entire grocery shopping trip without the plastic grocery bags. We’ve been collecting canvas and nylon tote bags, and I had a coupon for one more bag that somehow morphed into two bags (double coupon day?) so I came home with four large reusable bags and a great sense of civic pride.
It’s not that our household didn’t have canvas or fabric bags before. We have approximately eleventy-seven of them, all stuffed in the bottom of our closets or half-filled with yarn or old clothes or papers or other leftovers from some day trip. Some are from professional conferences, some are from institutions we’ve joined as members, some are from health fairs and colleges. Most of them are the wrong size, the wrong weight, not washable, or don’t have a bottom. Some are branded with stores we don’t shop at. Some are “too nice to use,” and others too grungy. It’s amazing how many excuses there are to obtain a bag, and how many excuses there are not to use one.
I started on the canvas bag kick during maternity leave; Bonzo and I would often trek up to the library, down to the hardware store, out to the park, or up the street to shop just so I didn’t lose my mind. I needed something bigger than a purse and smaller than a diaper bag to drop toys and blankets and wallets into. (In the later days of leave, when I became brave enough for longer outings and spendier in my habits, canvas bags were also a good way to disguise just what I was buying or from where.) I wanted to set a good example for the squirmy little infant riding on my chest, and I also (in my panic-ridden hormonal state) wanted to remove as many dangerous items as possible from his immediate space. Don’t ask me why I thought my plastic grocery bag might spring forward and suction itself onto his infant mouth and nose from across the room while my back was turned, but it was a concern.
Using canvas bags was a challenge in the neighborhood, particularly in the little corner stores where English is not a primary language. Juggling the baby and the wallet and the merchandise while waving my bag in the air was a skill that took surprising practice. Also, I found the social conditioning against taking stuff that you’ve not officially paid for kicked in when I tried to load the bag myself. Using canvas forced me to admit that there was generally some ill-paid worker loading my bags at the grocery and pharmacy, and that my merchandise was not hopping into its little plastic cocoon of its own accord. This took some of the fun out of recreational shopping.
Over the last ten months, the canvas bag experiment has gone mainstream; this year for Earth Day, there was a big spate of branded canvas bags from retail chains, and Whole Foods got loud and proud with its corporate decision to ax the plastic bag. I’m sure that I didn’t spearhead this initiative, and I even doubt that this push has much to do with environmental awareness. Some group of executives looked at the cost of providing paper and plastic bags and decided there was a better way. The canvas-bag craze also dovetails nicely with our national obsession for Obtaining and Storing Stuff, which makes us believe that we will be oh-so-organized if we get exactly the right container and fill it with exactly the right things while shunting our old things off to a storage facility. Even the methods by which we acquire bags are fraught with consumerism; do we recycle a (small, illfitting) conference tote, impulse-buy a branded grocery bag, or express our individuality and anti-corporate sentiment by purchasing premium designer color-cordinated reusable bags? My choices are supposed to say something about me, but since I can’t get my shoes to match my clothes, I’ve little hope of making the correct consumer statement with my carryall.
Is this little craze local to Chicago? (Pittsburgh? Philly? Columbus? New York? COS? Chime in, please!) Where do you see reusable bags? Do you use them? Why/not?
It’s not that our household didn’t have canvas or fabric bags before. We have approximately eleventy-seven of them, all stuffed in the bottom of our closets or half-filled with yarn or old clothes or papers or other leftovers from some day trip. Some are from professional conferences, some are from institutions we’ve joined as members, some are from health fairs and colleges. Most of them are the wrong size, the wrong weight, not washable, or don’t have a bottom. Some are branded with stores we don’t shop at. Some are “too nice to use,” and others too grungy. It’s amazing how many excuses there are to obtain a bag, and how many excuses there are not to use one.
I started on the canvas bag kick during maternity leave; Bonzo and I would often trek up to the library, down to the hardware store, out to the park, or up the street to shop just so I didn’t lose my mind. I needed something bigger than a purse and smaller than a diaper bag to drop toys and blankets and wallets into. (In the later days of leave, when I became brave enough for longer outings and spendier in my habits, canvas bags were also a good way to disguise just what I was buying or from where.) I wanted to set a good example for the squirmy little infant riding on my chest, and I also (in my panic-ridden hormonal state) wanted to remove as many dangerous items as possible from his immediate space. Don’t ask me why I thought my plastic grocery bag might spring forward and suction itself onto his infant mouth and nose from across the room while my back was turned, but it was a concern.
Using canvas bags was a challenge in the neighborhood, particularly in the little corner stores where English is not a primary language. Juggling the baby and the wallet and the merchandise while waving my bag in the air was a skill that took surprising practice. Also, I found the social conditioning against taking stuff that you’ve not officially paid for kicked in when I tried to load the bag myself. Using canvas forced me to admit that there was generally some ill-paid worker loading my bags at the grocery and pharmacy, and that my merchandise was not hopping into its little plastic cocoon of its own accord. This took some of the fun out of recreational shopping.
Over the last ten months, the canvas bag experiment has gone mainstream; this year for Earth Day, there was a big spate of branded canvas bags from retail chains, and Whole Foods got loud and proud with its corporate decision to ax the plastic bag. I’m sure that I didn’t spearhead this initiative, and I even doubt that this push has much to do with environmental awareness. Some group of executives looked at the cost of providing paper and plastic bags and decided there was a better way. The canvas-bag craze also dovetails nicely with our national obsession for Obtaining and Storing Stuff, which makes us believe that we will be oh-so-organized if we get exactly the right container and fill it with exactly the right things while shunting our old things off to a storage facility. Even the methods by which we acquire bags are fraught with consumerism; do we recycle a (small, illfitting) conference tote, impulse-buy a branded grocery bag, or express our individuality and anti-corporate sentiment by purchasing premium designer color-cordinated reusable bags? My choices are supposed to say something about me, but since I can’t get my shoes to match my clothes, I’ve little hope of making the correct consumer statement with my carryall.
Is this little craze local to Chicago? (Pittsburgh? Philly? Columbus? New York? COS? Chime in, please!) Where do you see reusable bags? Do you use them? Why/not?
