No More Plastic Bags!

I am so proud of my city right now! The Los Angeles City Council voted 13-to-1 to ban plastic grocery bags in a phase-out program over the next 16 months. This vote makes Los Angeles the largest city so far to enact laws to get rid of this environmental culprit. Estimates put the number of plastic bags recycled and used again at a pathetic 5%; clearly that wasn't working! Soon, L.A. grocery-store customers must either pay 10 cents per bag for a paper one, or bring their own.

Yay, cloth bags!

More than three years ago, I was up on my soap box on this issue, begging everyone to switch over to cloth bags. Mu Shu posed very sweetly for my post at that time:

Inexpensive, sturdy cloth bags are easy to find. A lot of businesses even give them away for free. I have bags from high schools and colleges my kids attended, free bags handed out by faith-based organizations, politicians, etc.

If you want a little more style in your bags and you're handy with a sewing machine, you can make your own. If you're not crafty--or you're just lazy, like me--go to Etsy.com and type in "cloth grocery bag." You will find dozens and dozens of vendors selling really attractive bags, like these, below.

This one, from Elimakes, is reversible:

This one, from Marketbags, is made from oilcloth. How cute is this?

If you can't stand cutesy bags, how about this handsome printed one from bagsYoutote:

Or this clever one, which Prettyliliya made from a pair of never-worn men's pants:

Using cloth bags--and remembering to bring them to the store--is really not hard. Like most good habits, once you do it for a little bit, it becomes second nature.

And please, do your grocery-store checkers a favor: Wash those bags from time to time! They will thank you for it.

And Mother Earth will bless you.