What do you use to bring groceries home?

I live in a place where your choices at the supermarket are bringing your own container/bags or paying for paper bags.

I have found that the 'reusable' bags being sold in the store don't last very long before falling apart.

What do you use to bring groceries from the store to your home?

Bonus points if you have any examples/pictures.

The recycled plastic reusable bags they sell for a dollar here last about 8 years, although we do cycle through about half a dozen at a time.  Cotton ones need mending after 4 or 5 years.  But cotton with mending and upkeep can last 25 years or more.  

It took about 3 years from banishing plastic bags for the supermarkets to figure out which bags to sell.  The original reusable ones broke down in under 6 months which sucks worse as they were about 12 dollars.  The one and two dollar ones last way longer.

But when possible, I ask for a box.  Most smaller grocery stores are happy as they don't have to pay to have them recycled and I'm happy because they are easier to carry and hold more stuff.

I use my ash foraging basket.

My cloth bags, I have lots of colors. They carry 2 glass gallon jars full of stuff easily. Might do three, but I can't pick up three at a time.



More about them in this thread Cloth Shopping Bags?

Usually by dragon. They don't mind the saddlebags at all. Parking is a challenge, but traffic seems to melt away. Ice cream doesn't fare well though.

Source: lucasgraciano.deviantart.com

Pearl Sutton wrote:My cloth bags, I have lots of colors.

There's a SkIP BB for that! https://permies.com/wiki/128025/pep-textiles/Sew-grocery-bags-PEP-BB

Scroll down the link to the gaudy 1970's flowered fabric to see the ones I sewed. They are *very* popular because I made the straps out of several layers of an old stained hoody (heavy cotton fleece) which makes the bags very easy on the hands even when heavy and being carried a distance.

This sort of thing makes a great beginner sewing project, as it's easy to upcycle cast-offs to keep the cost down, and it doesn't have to be perfect to carry groceries.  

The problem is that we keep being given the grocery store type R Ranson describes which removes the pressure to sew a few more.

When my dragon is in the shop for maintenance, I keep a bunch of nylon and polyester bags in my car.

If I forget the bags, I head to the produce section and chat up the person who is stocking and arranging. They usually have a massive pile of sturdy cardboard boxes right there and they're more than happy to get rid of a few. Some boxes get reused, some get recycled at the local depot.

I also bring my own bags- some are made of upcycled old woven feed bags, some were freebies from some promotion and they're the non-woven-fabric crap but they're strong.

The remainder are the kind that are made of really lightweight washable fabric and fold up into a tiny little bundle, some are like the ones in the picture below (others fold up even smaller). I keep two in my tiny purse and a bunch of others stashed in all the cars. They are super strong and great for the fruit and veg store (where everything is sold bulk by weight and you end up using 6 different bags) because they wash/dry really fast. The little ones are small enough that I even bring them when I travel internationally, and in a few places they've really saved my bacon (some places they don't even sell bags for you, you really need to bring your own)

I also bring my own bags for weighing produce, and they live inside some of the feed bag shopping bags. They're just normal plastic produce bags; my local market refuses to let me use my own net or fabric bags- here produce is generally weighed in the produce department where they print a sticker, for some reason they insist on using their own plastic bags... but I've found I can generally reuse produce bags at least 3 or 4 times, which is a good enough reduction for me.

I've collected heavy.cotton canvas bags from thrift stores for years.
My preference is no ads but we have a few with printing.

Some checkers love them, a very few claim they don't know how to use/fill them...so if they hesitate I just bag my own stuff...no big deal.

They hold a lot of weight, especially compared to the wimpy bags most stores offer here.

I think we have nine total although we generally use only 2 or three at a time.
They live on the back seat of the car and get washed and sunned every several loads of groceries.

Judith Browning wrote:I've collected cotton bags from thrift stores for years.
My preference is no ads but we have a few with printing.

Some checkers love them, a very few claim they don't know how to use/fill them...so if they hesitate I just bag my own stuff...no big deal.

.......

Wait a sec... your cashiers bag for you? Here in NJ, USA they just banned plastic bags a few years ago and people are still stumbling about it; forgetting to bring the bags, not quite adept at bagging, etc. In some stores they have a 2-sectioned landing area for your items where, after they're scanned, they get put to one of 2 sides. You go to the end of it and bag your stuff, and if you're still bagging when it's the next person's turn, the cashier puts their stuff on the other side of the little wall of the area, so it's separate from yours, then you can both bag at the same time if needed.

Most larger chains still have their usual old setups, and it's inefficient because the area they put your things is quite small, because it was never really needed before when the cashier would bag for you and just put your full plastic bags there. Now they keep jamming your stuff there, squishing your bread if it's a kid who's a bit unexperienced at life, while you struggle to frantically keep up, like you're in a video game where you'll die (or end up with squished items) if you don't keep up with the kid's scanning. I'm sure it's partly my own mental issue but I always feel a bit panicky and rushed to bag before the world comes to an end.

There is ONE small supermarket near me where it seems they are trained VERY well, and they are super nice to older folks in particular, offering to bag for them and even putting things back into their cart for them if it looks difficult. I think of it as "the old people's store", though really they should all be like that. It always did have an older clientele because the size of the store is reasonable for people who can't walk around for long.

SORRY: about the bag question: We have every kind of bag you can name, including 2 insulated bags for cold items. Other bags came from a variety of stores as the bag ban occurred, or from donating to a cause that gave us a tote bag, or from wherever. Between my too-many-choices of bag sizes and shapes and the Frogger-like rush at the register, it's a bit stressful.  

Anymore, we don’t grocery shop that much. We have a garden, chickens, goats, and pigs. When we do shop, it is normally Aldi or Costco …so I keep a few especially sturdy cardboard boxes around for that purpose.  Costco is 160 miles round trip. So that is done about every 6 months when we have a Dr appointment in the Big City. Aldi is a 60 mile round trip, so maybe once a month. For the few items I buy at the local grocery, I don’t use a bag.  Normally it is 3 items or so.

You can easily make your own reusable bags from an old t shirt and a piece of string. See the video on facebook.com/groups/flidgywumperbookproject. In Belize children will be making them in school in conjunction with the book Flidgywumper Saves the Seas. .

We only use reusable bags ( mostly canvas, some are those strong plastic ones with fabric handles like Trader Joe's has– not those crappy woven plastic ones that disintegrate and not flimsy plastic). Some we've rescued from bulk trash, others we were given ( we never take free ones at stores).

We trained ourselves always to have bags with us with negative reinforcement. If we forgot a bag we'd load the items into the cart, then into the car, then carry them into the house. A couple of times of that and we never forget!

Cara Campbell wrote:
We trained ourselves always to have bags with us with negative reinforcement. If we forgot a bag we'd load the items into the cart, then into the car, then carry them into the house. A couple of times of that and we never forget!

Where I live reusable bags are not common, and people often ask me how I remember to bring them everywhere. The answer is the same-- after a few times having to really scramble in places where there were no bags or boxes, you learn real quick!

I use several different well-tested bags, including one very strong canvas affair, but my favourite is a 45 year old nylon mesh bag that was standard equipment for housewives in Rome who wanted something strong yet small when not in use.  I use it for the vegetables that then go into the 12 volt cooler for the 2 to 4 hour drive home.  When pressed, I can use the cooler, and two more layers of passive coolers, a 6-pack container inside a 12-pack container, with ice, and get even frozen food home in the summer.  

r ranson wrote:The recycled plastic reusable bags they sell for a dollar here last about 8 years, although we do cycle through about half a dozen at a time.  Cotton ones need mending after 4 or 5 years.  But cotton with mending and upkeep can last 25 years or more.  

It took about 3 years from banishing plastic bags for the supermarkets to figure out which bags to sell.  The original reusable ones broke down in under 6 months which sucks worse as they were about 12 dollars.  The one and two dollar ones last way longer.

But when possible, I ask for a box.  Most smaller grocery stores are happy as they don't have to pay to have them recycled and I'm happy because they are easier to carry and hold more stuff.

This has been the best for us. My husband shops and brings home the bacon, so to speak and the cardboard is for permaculture awesomeness in the yard! It's a great set-up!

I just bought myself a little cart to bring my groceries home! It's only a km and a half or so but when I'm buying 12 kg of fruit it gets a bit hard, especially if I've got a flat of eggs or two as well. Lately I only have a car on the weekends, and if I want to have fun on the weekend instead of waste time on errands, I take my lunch hour during the week to do the produce shopping.

My wife bought three plastic boxes. First she measured the grocery carts at the store we go to the most often. Then she found the right size of boxes that will all fit in the cart, and in the trunk of our car. It's really nice to carry something rigid, I don't have to worry if the contents are moving around and squishing each other.

I bring my own bags. I have denim ones and canvas ones, and some cheapo insulated ones from the market for ice cream.

Where I live (Leeds, UK), it seems shoppers adapted quickly to the plastic bag ban.

Some shops have adapted themselves in a less helpful way by providing compostable bags, which conveniently have the shop logo. I always have a re-usable bag, which even comes with a neat little pouch, in my handbag, so I've not needed to accept one of these bags yet.

Yup, I buy tote bags from the thrift store.  Heavy canvas huge ones for when I buy watermelon.

Light, thin ones or small canvas ones for regular groceries.

Large nylon ones that fold into their own pocket or pouch, or I sew on a pouch to fold it into.  I have a few in my backpack with me always.  Also some in the glove compartment of the car.  Because sometimes you go shopping when you don't expect to.

And I have two small, light bags like the tiny one in the picture, clipped into my backpack, for smaller purchases.

I take a rolling cart, plus totes, to the farmers market.

I've also made very durable totes from denim skirts from the thrift store.  Just sew up the bottom and add nylon webbing straps. They make good gifts and get lots of compliments from store clerks.  One also got stolen from my garage.  They are very cute!

Sorry no picture.  The last one had holes from weevils chewing through it, and I haven't made another.

Other than buying milk and yogurt weekly locally (and possibly an ice cream treat occasionally), I only go grocery shopping about 4 times a year (Kona is a 2 hour drive away, so a shopping trip is not something you’d want to do frequently). I don’t bother with bags. I load everything in the cart, take it to the truck, where the stuff gets transferred into cardboard boxes for the trip home. The kind of boxes I use are easy to collapse and reassemble. I get them for free amid the cardboard being discarded from my local store, where I happened to buy my milk and yogurt. I can reuse those boxes for a lot of trips.

I figure it costs me $40 in gasoline for a shopping trip. So to get the most bang for the buck, I load the truck to the max. We hit Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, the garden supply store, livestock supply store, the thrift shops, and whatever else while we are in Kona. And if there is any space leftover, we fill in the gaps with whatever we anticipate needing, such as potting soil, field fencing, lumber, paint, etc.

I've made various totes from upholstery and left over fabric from sewing for my family as well as a seamstress working from home.
Here is one I made for our youngest daughter. It was really hard to give to her, because I truly loved this one.
I had just enough purple soft corduroy, lined it, put in pockets, etc. The appliqué I removed from a shirt I found at a thrift store, and applied it.
Since she is very sensitive to strapping, I made sure to use the soft corduroy to make the strapping. She continues to use this, now about 6 years old.

I've made various ones for the family for over 20 years, and they all hold the heavy groceries!!

Tereza Okava wrote:I just bought myself a little cart to bring my groceries home! It's only a km and a half or so but when I'm buying 12 kg of fruit it gets a bit hard, especially if I've got a flat of eggs or two as well. Lately I only have a car on the weekends, and if I want to have fun on the weekend instead of waste time on errands, I take my lunch hour during the week to do the produce shopping.

Yes! Carts!
Back in my NYC days I used a rolling cart. I’d open a couple of paper shopping bags inside it then bag my own groceries.
And I grew quite strong hauling it, on my back, up 3 flights of stairs!  

I make my own shopping bags. I have several different bags; one is knitted (in net stitch), one crocheted (in granny squares) and a few smaller ones sewn from thrifted cloths.
Next step is: I have two bicycles. One is mostly for the shopping in town. It has a basket (was meant to be for carrying a dog) on the back rack. That basket can contain two large shopping bags full of groceries.
My other bicycle is more for long trips and tours, but if I want I can use it for shopping. I can take two (at the back) or four (back and front) panniers, and even a handle-bar bag, and fill them all, and then something can be strapped on the back rack too.
I'll make photos to show here (when I have time)

Judith Browning wrote:I've collected heavy.cotton canvas bags from thrift stores for years.
My preference is no ads but we have a few with printing.

Some checkers love them, a very few claim they don't know how to use/fill them...so if they hesitate I just bag my own stuff...no big deal.

They hold a lot of weight, especially compared to the wimpy bags most stores offer here.

I think we have nine total although we generally use only 2 or three at a time.
They live on the back seat of the car and get washed and sunned every several loads of groceries.

Here (in the Netherlands) it was never the case that the people working at the shop were 'bagging'. We always had to do this ourselves. In the past we had the choice to take our own bag, or use the plastic bags that were (hanging) at the supermarket, or that sellers at other shops offered (they mostly asked if you wanted the plastic bag). Now the free plastic is not there anymore, they sell larger and sturdier plastic shopping-bags, as well as light-weight nylon bags (it's an item you can buy, like any other product they sell).

When I was at Curaçao (with my husband who was born and raised there) for the first time I was very surprised there were young people (teenagers) who bagged everything for us, in plastic bags ... and I wasn't aware they wanted to get paid for that (in cash coins). Next time I brought my own shopping bag, and was quick to bag everything myself! Not because I did not want to give those teenagers some money, but because I did not want all those plastic bags littering the beautiful island! Yes, it was really bad there, everywhere plastic bags hanging in trees, and the beaches had to be cleaned (of course that was a job for those young people too). I am glad even there those plastic bags are banned now.

I tell the nice person doing the packing: "They are already bagged, plastified, mummified, so just put them back in the cart. I'll take them as is".
I have a box and a couple of bags in the car, so I pay, go out with the cart and make the transfer.
This way, they are packed like I want: cold/frozen items together, fruit/veggies together etc..

When I go shopping, I use one of these:
https://www.comptoirdelavannerie.fr/produit/couffin-en-palmier-poignees-en-cuir/

It's made from natural fibres and the last one lasted 15 years.  When it starts to break up, I use it as a plant container and it eventually ends up in the compost.  The current one is already 10 years old!

In the basket, I carry a couple of those:
https://www.filt1860.fr/fr/12-filet-a-provisions-petite-poignee.html

Also, some home made pull string bags for loose ingredients, like rice, beans flour, etc.

Most food retailers in France leave empty cardboard boxes by the tills for the customer's use, very handy for bulkier items.  Then of course they are very useful for storage, lighting the fire. mulch or compost

I like to use makeshift bags of strong light cloth. Tie the corners together as needed. I also make super simple bags from jersey knit.

We have big box club stores and ikea stores in ct. Those stores sell gigantic rugged bags with Velcro closures and rugged straps for hauling groceries and bulk purchases. I think I spent less than 10 bucks more than 5 years ago for 4 bags and have used them extensively without issue. I only miss grocery store paper bags for lighting the chiminea ;)

I just reuse the sturdy paper bags from the grocery store. They have good handles and can carry quite a bit of weight. I get $.05 rebate for each one I bring in. A good deal. They can be doubled for especially heavy loads. Eventually a handle will break or a bottom will get wet and give way but in the meantime they work well and are free. I even had a clerk staple a handle back together for me. I also use them to bag stuff at Costco as it’s easier for me to carry than boxes.

I made a photo to show you my 'shopping-bicycle' with the basket at the back, and the shopping-bags I made (and wrote about). In general I would not ride with the bags at the handle-bar, it's just to show you ...


(sorry for all distracting rubbish in the photo, some of it will be brought to the dump soon by my son who has a car)

I use a big round/oval basket (I have 2 of them). These are African made with leather wrapped handles, the ones you commonly see. I love using them because they have a flat bottom and the bottles and jars don't fall over. I also bring a (Pelican brand) cooler -optional- if going to the market and leave that in my car, pack all the cold stuff in there. In my backpack which is my purse I have one cotton canvas shoulder bag in case I need it. It is not likely to break down.

Since I run the local shop, I never have to do a big shop - just bring what I need home at the end of the day in my small rucksack. I'm finding this thread really helpful though with suggestions for my customers.

Please do ask for boxes - I'm always happy to give them out for people to reuse - small, medium, large - we get all sizes of boxes with various deliveries in to the shop!

I often wonder about boxes.  Some grocery shops have a big stack of clean boxes next to the till and you grab one as the personal is scanning the items.  Other shops seem happy but surprised when someone asks for a box and it takes a bit of effort to find one.  The larger shops looke at us with confusion as if they don't know what a box is.

Boxes are so much better than bags. Carry more stuff with less efort.  Things don't fall out in the car.  Boxes are useful around the house later.

There always used to be boxes next to the checkouts when I was a child....then someone decided it was a fire hazard and the boxes had to go. Moderation in all things is best I suspect.

r ranson wrote:... Some grocery shops have a big stack of clean boxes next to the till and you grab one as the personal is scanning the items.  Other shops seem happy but surprised when someone asks for a box and it takes a bit of effort to find one.  The larger shops looke at us with confusion as if they don't know what a box is.

Some companies have figured out that they can sell the cardboard for recycle and make money out of it. At least that's an explanation I've heard.

Tereza Okava wrote:I just bought myself a little cart to bring my groceries home!

I have the identical cart as Teresa's in Bulgaria, for bringing shopping home from town, as well as plenty of those reusable nylon bags that fold up small. The cart isn't as large or as sturdy as I'd like, it doesn't like to be asked to carry more than abut 15 kg of groceries! But any larger and it wouldn't fit on the mini-bus from the supermarket in the next town back to the village, so it's good enough. I do find many of the nylon folding bags aren't that well made, with unfinished seam edges that tend to fray and make a hole in the seam. Reinforcing the seams is an easy ten minute sewing job, so I'm still using bags purchased ten and twenty years ago for trips to the local shop, both in the UK and in Bg.