Re-useable shopping bags from the grocery store work best when you remember to take them from your kitchen to the car to the store. But how many times have you made an unscheduled stop and mentally cursed because the six bags you’ve accumulated are at home while you’re at the checkout? And if you depend on public transport, an impulse or last-minute stop after work means spending a nickel on plastic because you didn’t plan to have those grocery bags on hand.
Nylon shopping totes that fold up small enough to keep in your purse are the growing-in-popularity solution to forgotten bags. Aside from being super lightweight, they’re strong enough to carry weighty items like milk and laundry detergent in the same load and come in a range of express-yourself colours and patterns.
Top options include MyTagAlongs, Envirosax and Baggu totes, which have little snap-closure straps like umbrellas do to keep them folded neatly; Flip & Tumble 24/7 bags which scrunch down into nifty little balls; and, from clothing retailer Reitmans, roomy bags that fold into compact, Kleenex-package size (they’ve proved so popular that Toronto’s Eaton Centre location regularly sells out of them).
Another plus to purse-friendly nylon shopping bags is easy cleaning: just throw ’em into a mesh laundry bag and in with your cold-water wash.
