At this point I'm a little puzzled by his reaction, he's looking a little incredulous, like he's indulging a weirdo at a funny farm. With a little shrug he's off to his car, and I fetch a bag -- full of bags -- and get into his car. I'm puzzling over what's so odd about bringing my own bags to the store.
Mind you I have one of the most eclectic collections of bags. I have many more bags, but here's a sample in a photo of the types of bags we're talking about -- the ones that were in my car on Saturday.
So we fill up a shopping cart with more things than we intended to buy, and at the register, I put 3 bags on the belt and start putting the groceries on the belt. The cashier nonchalantly takes the bags I offered and starts checking out groceries and filling the bags. It's a Redners, and they have a bag policy (2cents off for every bag you bring -- it's not much: it's the environment that matters). At this point, my partner is watching. When the guy is running out of bags, I hand him a few more. He uses one plastic bag for the yogurts (the ones with only a flimsy tin lid now that they've dropped the extra plastic one (yay!)) in case they leak. When he's done he tallies the bags in my cart, and refunds me. Never mind that the bags in my cart hold 2-3 times the number of groceries -- the point is still clear that we're saving something. Money, environment, whatever it takes to motivate people.
We leave with about 6 or 7 of MY bags full of groceries. We're putting them into the car, and finally it's all filtering in and digesting in my partner's brain. When we're unloading the car carrying 6 comfortable bags over our shoulders and in our hands, packed to the brim, instead of 15 flimsy plastic bags with tiny uncomfortable handles, half-filled because the stuff weighs too much for the bags to handle he finally gets it. By now he's muttering, "This is brilliant! I hate even touching the plastic bags. And they gave you a refund for them!" I'm not impressed about the $.12, but I chuckle knowingly.
I always loved to carry a backpack with me in the city. A notebook, a fiction book, pens, pencils, maybe a sweatshirt, and often an extra string bag. It always gave me a pleasurable feeling to tell merchants to skip the bag and toss something into the backpack. I've been doing it for years and years. That's how Europe works -- they don't do the whole massive plastic bag thing like the US. We think it's a major hassle to carry a bag around, but they fold up really small or the string bags easily stuff into a spare compartment of another bag. My bag-of-bags fits easily in my trunk, and is easy to grab the big bag's handle and run into the store.
I have string bags from food coops, a couple paper bags just because they're large and it's a shame to not reuse them a few times -- they also hold their shape really well for bread and other soft foods. I have a huge(!) shopping bag -- certainly a 3-4 bag capacity -- from Prisms Promotions, a local promotional products consultant. I have another smaller bag from the Sullivan (NY) County Chamber of Commerce that specifically talks about going green. A very large plastic bag (in case I purchase pillows or blankets -- craft store purchases, etc. fluffy light huge things or big boxes) from a wholesale liquidation outlet. I don't always remember to take my bags into stores, I'm trying to get better at it. If you add my collection of "gadgety bags" like messenger bags, waist pouches, briefcases, computer bags, etc. I really start to look like a bag lady. I even crocheted my own string bag, and create bags when I do craft projects. Just call me a bag lady!
