Reusable bags only good if you use them

Linda Waits wants to help save the environment but, she admits, sometimes even the simplest fixes are easy to forget.

The 52-year-old Land Park resident is actually doing well today – she has remembered to bring her reusable grocery bags, giving herself an earth-friendly alternative to that enduring paper-or-plastic debate.

Also: "They hold a lot and they're cheap," says Waits of the totes made of recycled plastic as she wrapped up her shopping recently at a midtown Safeway.

Used to be carrying such totes to lug your groceries was the purview of only the most environmentally conscious.

But these days, a growing group of consumers – and the stores catering to them – opt for the eco-chic bags.

In addition to Safeway, several major grocery chains, including Raley's, Save Mart Super- markets and Nugget Market, offer 99 cent choices.

Trader Joe's, the hip, low-cost specialty food chain, sells durable plastic bags in several sizes and designs, and on April 22, Whole Foods Market, the upscale organic and natural foods grocer, will kick off a new BYOB – Bring Your Own Bag – program, eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags in its 270 stores nationwide.

Perhaps it's not too surprising. It seems a natural next step in the current think-global, go-local movement. Indeed, cities are embracing it, too.

San Francisco has banned disposable plastic bags in grocery stores, which have replaced them with biodegradable, compostable bags.

And in February, Sacramento City Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell recommended that Sacramento follow San Francisco's lead.

"We've been talking a lot about the city 'going green' and we need to take a look at the issue," Pannell says. A proposal to ban plastic bags has been referred to the council's law and legislative committee for further study.

But why now – and will the trend last?

"After Earth Day 2007, the (reusable) bags turned up on everyone's list as one of the top ways to save the environment," says Vincent Cobb, founder of the Chicago-based Reusablebags.com, a line of eco-friendly products that includes grocery totes and produce bags. "They're right up there with eco-friendly water bottles and incandescent lights."

And yes, using the bags is a good start, he adds, but not if you just buy them on a whim or out of guilt – and then don't use them.

"It needs to become a habit," he says.

Several stores are trying to help with that by offering shoppers nifty incentives.

For instance, customers at Trader Joe's who use any reusable bag – not just those sold by the store – are entered into monthly lotteries for free groceries, and Whole Foods gives customers a refund – which can be donated to charity – for every recyclable bag used on a shopping trip.

"It's a win-win solution," says Rebecca Bakken, a store team leader for Whole Food Market's Sacramento store.

The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op has offered shoppers such enticements as recycled bags for the past decade. "We want to make every day Earth Day," says the store's education coordinator Alicia Oldfield.

In recent months, Oldfield adds, she's noticed a "definite" increase in the use of the bags, with some customers even eschewing plastic produce bags.

"I walk through the store and see carts filled with unbagged produce," Oldfield says.

Later this year, the co-op will introduce a compact nylon bag that folds into a pocket-sized pouch.

"It's a good solution for people who tend to forget the larger bags," Oldfield says.

People like Corine St. Ofle, who used to frequently suffer from bag neglect.

"I was getting so frustrated (with myself)," says the 27-year-old midtown resident.

So, St. Ofle says, she and her husband vowed to try harder, stocking plenty of bags at home and in the car.

"You have to have tricks – you just have to get yourself into a rhythm of using them," she says.

Now, St. Ofle uses at least three bags per shopping trip, although, she says, while she appreciates that stores sell their own bags, she just brings generic ones of her own.

"I'm not really tempted to buy (a store bag)," St. Ofle says. "I'm using these bags because waste really bothers me, so why buy more?"

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• Call The Bee's Rachel Leibrock, (916) 321-1176.