Bagging it

I'm back from my Saturday morning farmer's market/grocery shopping. It hit me this morning how things have changed so much in the past year with shopping bags. Last year, I took my own bags to the farmer's market and a couple of the vendors looked at me like I was from Mars when I said that I didn't need a bag, I had my own. Now almost every shopper I see at the farmer's market has their own bags.

Then I made a pit stop at our grocery store with my trusty old bags. The cashier remarked, "Wow...these are our really OLD bags! They're so much better than the new ones!", which is totally true. It seems most of the new bags are made from this thin semi-fabric/semi-papery material that seems like it could rip easily. My old bags (bought from the store when I moved into my first apartment in 1992) are canvas and washable and have held up for more than 15 years.

The cashier also told me that the grocery store (Safeway) is phasing out plastic bags. She said they will only have limited quantities and customers will have to pay for them. I'm sure the cost will be minimal, but if it helps reduce the amount of plastic bag waste, I'm all for it.