Eco friendly produce and bulk shopping bags

[Arduinna]

I'm sure the whole paper vs plastic bags has been thoroughly discussed here, so what I'm wondering is how do you feel about the plastic and paper produce bags? And the bags for purchasing bulk items.

I try to use reuseable cloth bags for my regular shopping. Although I do sometimes get paper (for me the lesser of two evils) if I buy more than will fit in my cloth or forget them.

I've yet to move onto cloth for my produce and bulk purchases though. Anyone have any good ideas? I'm thinking about making some draw string bags for my bulk rice ect. I often don't put produce in a bag at all. But 8 loose lemons in a cart is a pain too.

Tips? Suggestions? Opinions?

[abigailvr]

I reuse the bags I get, whenever possible. It's probably not the ideal situation, but I figure it's better than getting a new bag each time.

I'll be interested to hear other good solutions!

[khrisday]

I imagine those net bags would be good for produce- you know the fish-net woven kind with handles?

[moon girl]

We reuse all our produce bags. we're usually able to reuse a bag quite a few times. We actually save potato chip bags and other plastic product bags to reuse so it's really rare that we have to use new ones. The co-op where we shop sells these reusable produce bags. They look like their made of a gauze like cotton with a drawstring. They're kind of expensive so I've never bought any but I beg they'd be easy to make. I've also taken glass or plastic jars to buy bulk items and just have them weigh the container before I use it.

Of course when I forget our bags or when we go shopping on a day we weren't planning, we either take all the food out in the cart and put it in the car or take some bags.

[LaLa]

was it chanley who uses the onion bags for her produce?

We just re-use the plastic ones. Our co-op has very sturdy re-usable plastic bags.