My latest personal goal is a determination to train myself to use reusable shopping bags. I can’t stand plastic shopping bags. You see them littering all over the place, blowing across roads and parking lots, stuck in tree branches, heaven knows how many are in landfills and we all have a zillion which came home with us from the grocery in our homes.

A quick calculation tells me that my two person household uses a minimum of 21 plastic bags per week. That’s only at the grocery and does not count odd errands or stores. It’s also a conservative estimate. Yikes. I’m bad.

I do recycle the plastic bags in some manner. They get used as dog poop pick up bags when we take the dogs to the park so I always keep a slew in the back of my car. I have a Great Dane. Needless to say the bags don’t get used again. Still, I bring home far more than my two dogs can use.  I’m also against claiming that I am for the environment without practicing what I preach so on with my training.

I never use bags from stores if I can carry something or stick it in my purse – places I shop frequently already know this and don’t bag my goods but sometimes I need a sack. I have tried a dozen canvas or cloth sacks. They blow. They don’t hold up after the first wash. My world is one where everything gets washed frequently – refer to the two large dogs I have along with a man, and one man about can equal 2 three-year-olds in the mess department!

So I have failed miserably at cloth organic reusable shopping bags. I don’t care for the mesh bags as I don’t really want everyone to see what is in my tote, plus pointy things get tangled up in them.

In my quest for a bag that I would actually use I purchased two Envirosax Reusable Shopping Bags. Yup, they are polyester and not organic, but they are small enough to stuff in my little purse or for the boyfriend to stuff in a pocket, lightweight, larger and supposedly hold 44lbs. If one polyester back saves me a years worth of plastic I am all for it. Plus someone pointed this article out to me Reusable Shopping Bags: Which Is the Greenest of Them All? which you can read and decide for yourself.

The Enviorsax come in patterns or solids. If my two test bags work out and hold up I’ll buy more. They are not unattractive at all and at a counter you can set a stylish example of green lifestyle. Lots of colors and patterns to select from. Below is a couple of samples.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I must break the habit of plastic shopping bags.