Reusable Grocery Bags – To Tote or Not To Tote!

It took me many, many shop­ping trips until the habit of bring­ing my reusable gro­cery bags with me became sec­ond nature. Many, many times they stayed behind, hang­ing from the door­knob or even right in front of my nose.

Now, I might for­get my keys, my shoes or, some days, even my name – but I never leave home with­out my reusable gro­cery bags! In the unlikely event that I do for­get them, there’s always a cou­ple of “just in case” extra bags that live in the trunk of the car. Or, if I hap­pen to be walk­ing, there’s my tried and trusty “Mickey Mouse” fold­able back that lives in my purse.

(Won­der­ing about the name? Yes, it’s a bag with ears that folds into a minia­ture Mickey Mouse shape about the size of a small coin purse. A good friend of mine brought it for me from Dis­ney World, and it has become a full-time exten­sion of my purse).

In other words, when it comes to “green” shop­ping, all my bases are def­i­nitely cov­ered. But try as hard as we might, there are still some things for which reusable gro­cery bags just don’t work. Take pro­duce bags, for exam­ple. Since the farm­ers’ mar­kets aren’t avail­able all week, I often have to stop at the super­mar­ket on my way to the kitchen. Most of their pro­duce is drenched in water to pre­serve fresh­ness, mak­ing it tough to pack it in with the dried goods and other items. The same is even truer for the meat and poul­try department.

Which brings me to my dilemma – to use or not use plas­tic shop­ping bags. Lately, I’ve been hear­ing a num­ber of news sto­ries about the impor­tance of wash­ing your reusable bags to pre­vent the risk of food-born ill­ness. This seems like com­mon sense, right? You carry can­vas bags, bags get dirty. What to do with dirty cloths? You wash them. If it isn’t a cloth bag, then you san­i­tize them with Lysol wipes. Use a bas­ket instead of a bag? Water and soap will do.

So what’s a health– and environmentally-conscious shop­per to do? Here are a few things I’ve found use­ful about gro­cery bags and how we use them:

1. Reusable gro­cery bags come in many dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als; most of them are hand– or del­i­cate cycle– machine wash­able. All should be washed after each use. Hang to dry – don’t use the dryer even if they say you can. Some peo­ple also rec­om­mend bleach­ing your bags once a week to reduce or elim­i­nate bac­te­ria (1 Tbsp of chlorine-free bleach per gal­lon or 16 cups of water, or ¾ cup for your stan­dard washer cycle).

2. Sep­a­rate your bags into dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories, then use them only for those things that fit into their respec­tive groups. For exam­ple, I use some bags only for pro­duce, oth­ers for meat, and still oth­ers for car­ry­ing books, gym items and so on.

3. I still wrap meat, poul­try and seafood in dou­ble plas­tic bags before putting them into the reusable shop­ping bags. Don’t for­get to keep your meat and pro­duce in sep­a­rate bags. For things that have to be refrig­er­ated, if I know they’ll be out of the fridge for more than a few min­utes (even in Vancouver’s less-than-blistering-hot sum­mers), I also put a cooler in the car with some ice packs.

4. To reduce pro­duce bags, I always put a hand bas­ket in the front of my gro­cery cart. I put all my pro­duce that isn’t wet into the bas­ket instead of putting it into plas­tic bags, then I hand the bas­ket to the cashier and we pack all my lovely fruits and veg­gies loose in a reusable bag. If you’re a good seam­stress or have a good farm­ers’ mar­ket or nat­ural food store near you, you can also make or buy reusable pro­duce bags – www.credobags.com/catalog has some good ones for bulk grains, legumes, nuts, seeds and fruits.

5. One last tip? Go one step fur­ther, and con­sider bins over bags. Bins are sturdy, reusable, and easy to clean and keep dry.

Happy shop­ping!

What are your tips for a healthy, green and trouble-free shop­ping spree?