Friday, July 1, 2011

Celebrate Independence (And go plastic-bag free)

Happy (early) Independence Day to all my fellow American readers!

Just in time for 4th of July, the Mother Nature Network invites us all to celebrate plastic bag independence on July 3rd. In celebration of this, I'm featuring cool non-plastic bag options.

Hand carry wrap
Of course, there's always my favorite furoshikis. I use a hand carry bag wrap for just about everything! It's especially good for groceries since you can hang the two separate handles on the metal hooks for plastic bags and it will keep its shape during loading.

The only thing the hand wrap isn't good with is books. I use the large object wrap with a smaller furoshiki than needed for "large objects" if I have a lot of books, or the two books wrap for some novelty fun.

Large object wrap and a summer read
One thing I've learned over the last few months about furoshiki: try to tie as much as you can in advance. For example, the hand carry wrap can be basically tied in advance, rolled tightly, and popped into your purse or bag. I use an old, stretched out hair tie to keep it together. The large object wrap can have its diagonal corners tied beforehand, or while you're standing in line. When you're ready to pack, slip the books into the loop, then quickly tie the third step and walk out happy.

Do you have no reusable bags, but some unused fabric? My favorite crafting blog, How About Orange, has a list of tote bag tutorials to help you upcycle your fabric into something pretty and useful.

Ever stuck without a laptop bag? Howcast has a way to turn a hoodie into a laptop bag in quite a clever way.

So, my darling readers, are you inspired to shun plastic bags for a day? If you are, leave your favorite "go green" tip in the comments, and one at random will win a furoshiki! It's upcycled (which means my grandmother dumped a lot of her old scarves on me) so I can't comment on the color. It's going to be a patriotic red and blue camouflage! The winner will be announced in two weeks.

Please, US residents only for the competition. Your comment must be posted by Friday, July 8th to be eligible.

Go forth and celebrate! 

1 comment:

  1. Go green random things:

    Coffee grinds for plant fertilizer!

    Old t-shirts into new quilts!

    Re-using old items as props! Oh wait, that just might only work for me....

    ReplyDelete