Chico Bags: 'Curb Your Consumption'

I had the privilege of meeting the owners of ChicoBag at the Eco City World Summit Conference in San Francisco last week. The conference featured some of the latest green innovations, however I must say, I was instantly impressed with simplicity and functionality of the ChicoBag, which is named after the town of Chico, California.

Reusable grocery store bags are all the rage, and the makers of ChicoBags offer a convenient alternative to single use bag consumption. The concept is simple: brightly colored nylon bags, that fold down small enough to put in your pocket, but are durable enough to handle frequent trips to the grocery store. Lots of grocery stores have began selling reusable grocery bags, but I have yet to encounter any product as small and as versatile as the ChicoBag. According to the ChicoBag website, the average US consumer uses 300-700 plastic bags a year. Using ChicoBags consistently would significantly cut down on the amount of shopping bag waste. Use them in place of paper and plastic bags the next time you go to the farmers market. Stash a ChicoBag in your purse so you'll never be caught without one.

Check out the ChicoBag website at www.chicobag.com to purchase a bag for personal use. Bulk orders for retailers are also available online.

Plastic Bags?

Some cities are now banning plastic grocery bags and forcing people to use alternative like canvas bags and the like. What about the little plastic bags that you would use to hold your broccoli or mushrooms? Well we found these alternatives to plastic bags (mesh ) at the following sites.

Reusable Bags - where they have a plastic bags used this year counter ( I wonder how accurate that is)

and

Blue Lotus - we discovered these in the hands of some locals at our local farmers market.


We are not sure yet how well these hold up to a washing machine or if they need to be hand washed.