I hate those annoying paper bags from TJs because I don't like having to fold them up and put them in the recycling bin where they take up all the space. And the handles usually break. I do use those really bad for the environment plactic bags to take my lunch to work, but they pile up. I have enough to take 30 million lunches to work.Then one day I spotted the Trader Joe's Canvas Bag hanging up near the register. I'm a huge register buyer. Even though I know that stuff right by the register is aimed specifically at people like me, who like making impulse purchases. I actually have begun to think of the impulse purchase area as a wonderful place for the store to put merchandise that they so kindly have decided to remind me to purchase. Because they are usually right. I do need those AAA batteries (thank you Home Depot), I do need that bleach pen (thank you Target), I do need canvas bags for my groceries to reduce my overdependence on plastic bags (thank you Trader Joe's).
I bought the canvas bags for a couple of reasons. Okay I like that I'm doing my really really really tiny part to help the environment (although according to a special that I saw on 20/20, the fact that we are running out of landfill space is a myth... discuss). I like that I don't have to deal with millions of plastic bags anymore. I love that I don't have to stop the Trader Joe's employees from putting my groceries in the hated paper bags.
I also read somewhere about how Europeans go to the grocery store way more frequently than Americans, and they get fresh wonderful food, making them wonderfully impossibly thin. So yes some strange part of me think that by going to the grocery store three times a week and eating fresh wonderful food, I will be impossibly thin and healthy and European. Oh but back to the bags, I only bought three so that forces me to go for smaller trips, more frequently, more European, more wonderful.
And finally, I always hated getting back from Trader Joe's with eight bags that I had to drag up to the house. Now that I do go more frequently (usually twice a week) its much more pleasant dragging three canvas bags upstairs.
Cost: $3.99 each
On Bag: Trader Joe's A Unique Grocery Store (come on that's cute)
Location: Usually hanging right near the register, near that bell that the employees sometimes ring and I'm never really sure why.
