Walking to the grocer with two bunched up empty canvas bags under your arm is a kind of uncool only surpassed by walking back with two full canvas bags one of which has a floral print on it. See figure A. It’s just plain unsightly. I thought “there must be a more masculine, less humiliating way to stop wasting plastic grocery bags by the hundreds” (300-700 per average US citizen – that means you too buddy). “Blam”! It’s a thunder bolt of genius at the crosswalk. What if we designed an exact replica of the standard plastic grocer bag out of a lightweight ultra compatible nylon?!
A guy could shove a few in the pocket. Head off to the store. Everyone would be none the wiser as you stroll in empty handed. Do your thing. Then saunter out with your foodstuffs stuffed into a regular looking bag that just so happened to be made out of reusable nylon instead of waste-able plastic. Brilliant! A million dollar Donny Deutsch big idea!
A couple of half attempts at doing a google search for “reusable grocery bag”s later and we’re off to, sorry gents, Joanne Fabrics to find some Nylon. All I could really find in the search was the oversized canvas tote type bags that are really cumbersome. At the fabric store, turns out Rip Stop Nylon might make for a good reusable, easily condensable grocery bag. Maybe make the tag out of an elastic to wrap the whole thing up when it’s condensed.
Head home. Break out the wifer’s sewing machine. Take a regular plastic grocery bag. Cut it carefully apart to make a kind of pattern for the nylon. Cut the nylon accordingly. First road block. How does a person sew this thing together so it’s strong enough? Maybe have to hire someone. Mmmmm, that might start costing some real money now. Perhaps I aughts to do a little better search for my “breakthrough” idea before investing more.
That’s when the wind came out of the sails. I think the first time around I really didn’t want to find anything like it so I made it so. However, this time around I found allotta options. Ugh. Shipwrecked. To make matters worse the wifer came home and said there was pretty much the exact design at the end of each checkout that stuffs neatly into a pouch. It has a handy dandy clip too! Again, selective eyesight. it’s the grocery store we frequent.
So anyway. I’m way late to the party. But here are a few of the many folks already there:
Granite Gear – Air Grocery Bag
ACME Bags™ – Workhorse Style 1500 Reusable grocery bag.
ChicoBag™ – The Original ChicoBag
Baggu – Reusable Shopping Bag