Do Your Part to Stop Bag Breakage :: On ReUsable Shopping Bags

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Has this happened to you? You block some time early one weekend morning; you head up to the home center. You’re gonna do your part. You plan to seal those leaky windows . . . . Goals: Effectively cut down on energy usage, shrink your own personal carbon footprint and . . . save a buck or two in the process.

And there, within the hour, you find yourself in the caulk aisle.  You don’t need to ask; you’ve done this before.  Siliconized acrylic: Water clean up, a 35-year warranty, in white, but paintable.

Self checkout for you . . . no line, usually; it will get you out the door . . . fast.  But wait, while on your way, this, then that end cap happens to catch your eye.  Oooo — a head mount flashlight, Ooooo — EZ-Seed grass seed; Tiki Torches! . . . Gotta have ’em and you’ve got to grab the torch oil too.

But you’re done now and you have paid; you place your items in the bag that is conveniently provided.  Out the door, which seems to sense your presence — “Open says me!” and then directly to your car.

To dig your keys from your pocket, you must first situate the handles of the plastic bag into your other hand.  Then it happens, “Tear,” a big one, big enough to split the bag easily in half.  And you, a moment later, are off; your caulk tubes racing down the ever so slight but still present slope found there in the parking lot — and your dignity seems to be bringing up the rear.

The preceding was a dramatization

Of course, I am talking about caulk’s tendency always to want to poke its cone-like head straight through the soft shell of the home centers’ free totes (double bagged or not).

And recently, I have begun to notice the general absence of people carrying reusable shopping bags while shopping for home-related supplies . . . and me, honestly — no tote in hand.

I mean — for folks like me, the home center is nearly as regular as the food store.  And while it seems in recent months that reusable cloth or canvas bags have really caught on at the grocery stores, I wonder why they have not yet made their way into the standard at the home center.

Is it maybe the lack of availability on end caps or at checkouts?  Is it maybe just where I live?  Or . . . has this connection simply not been made?

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Bring ReUsable Shopping Bags to the Home Center

I know for my family it has been difficult to remember our bags (purchased for 99c each) on food shopping trips.  We try to work them into our regime; I mean — what good do they do if we can’t seem to remember to bring them along?

Motivation:  15 plastics, this waste often floating around our city, easily replaced by five or six sturdy canvas bags.  They seem to stow ever so neatly into our all too small trunk.  Our memory will hopefully get better, at least a little bit better.

And while I think of hanging them near the side door (the one closest to the driveway), and toy with the idea of attempting to let them live in the car, my plans of now are to earmark some space for them in our pantry (which will receive work hopefully pretty soon).

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So . . . the question is — What techniques do you employ to help you remember your reusable bags as you head off to this, that or the other store?

Please comment below.  Thank you and BMoxie BMore!