Bag lady

Should I preface this with a statement about the positive environmental impacts of reusable bags?  Right now, I don't know.  Actually (I had my students look into those ones from the grocery store one time) and they are made from non-woven plastic, so technically you are still using a lot of plastic.  They have a design life of two years at which point they will start to wear at the seams and the handles will break and I will throw them away, send them to the landfill where they will never break down because they are made of plastic.  Also, they are in a landfill, which is now so tightly sealed and controlled that an apple core probably doesn't break down in there.  But - I feel like an environmental crusader when I whip them out at the store and give an evil glare to the person in front of me who doesn't have reusable bags!

Actually, I don't do that.  But mostly it's because I don't even have my bags with me.  But when I do......

Bags seem to have become the branding item of choice.  For a while there I couldn't turn around without someone handing me a bag.  The hospital gave them out at the farmers market, the school gave them out, the kids would come home with them from various events.

And then - they started to appear with drawstrings.  The kids were doing all these fun runs and every fun run came with a drawstring bag.  Drawstring bags are the least. practical. bag. ever.  First, they are small.  I use them to tote the kids things to and from swimming lessons and they barely fit a thin towel and goggles.  And they are no good for books, given that it's necessary that the top compresses (thus eliminating more potential interior space.  And the strings are too short to use it as a backpack (plus I look like a super-dork with a mini drawstring bag on my back.)

I have gotten creative with the reuse of these bags.  Granted, there are two large grocery-style bags filled with other grocery bags that I occasionally use to take groceries home from the store.  I have a bag holding each of the kids swimming lesson stuff - a bag for extra baseballs - a bag for off-season soccer cleats - a bag for toys that the kids have lost as a consequence of doing something they weren't supposed to do with the toy.  I have bags for holding other bags - bags for taking things from the first floor to the second floor - for taking things from second floor to the first floor - for hiding things I don't have time to clean when people are coming over.  There is a piano book bag (three actually - weird given we have one kid taking piano lessons) - a bag for library books - a bag full of winter things that I'm still afraid to put away.  And these are the bags that are CURRENTLY IN USE.  I did a quick count of bags in the laundry room closet and came up with 47.  FORTY SEVEN.

Clearly I have a bag problem.  I must stop accepting free bags (but they are free!).