Reusable Shopping Bags

I do not mean to suggest that reusable shopping bags are a bad idea, merely that the majority of these bags that are sold are poorly designed.

Mistake #1: Cloth

All reuasable grocery bags should be waterproof. Things happen on the way home from the grocery store: eggs break, milk bottles leak, fluids escape from packages of meat. Cloth bags are not up to the task of containing these messes.

Mistake #2: Not Square Bottoms

This is an area where the plastic bag can not only be equaled, but surpassed. Reusable bags can take a much greater variety of shapes and sizes. Their sturdier construction means that they can be bigger and more rigid, leading to much more efficient packing of groceries. I use two very large reusable bags, and often fit about 5-8 plastic bags-worth of groceries into the pair.

Both of the types of bags pictured above do not efficiently meet the needs of the consumer, but many other reusable bags do.