Have you ever thought about reducing your plastic use? Well, one of the easiest places to look is at your shopping habits. If you use plastic produce bags for every produce item you get, you might be wasting more plastic than you think.
Most mainstream recycling programs will not recycle plastic produce bags due to the thin material of the plastic film, only 1% end up recycled back into production, while the rest end up in the landfill. There’s a great eco-friendly solution to making your grocery trips more enjoyable! Cloth produce bags.
Not only are cloth produce bags relatively cheap, they are better for the environment and can be found in tons of fun patterns and colors. You can even make them on your own, we found a really cool blog post on how to do it, so if you are crafty check out this blog post here.
Better yet, leave it loose. Instead of putting every produce item you get into bags, just plop it right into your cart. That bunch of carrots you got is going to get washed when you get home anyway, and will be just fine with your other items. For the produce that you get multiples of, stick them in a cloth bag, such as avocados, lemons, limes, potatoes, etc. You can find produce bags of many shapes and sizes, for all your produce needs.
Cloth bags are easy to find online, the website Etsy has a great range of fun patterns and colors that we really enjoy. If you want to get fancy, BagMeFrankfurt makes some amazing cloth bags you can order.
However, here are some of our more wallet-friendly favorites:
Ecobags
Set of 3 for $11.49
Find them here.
Package Free Shop
$6.25 each
Find them here.
Crate & Barrel
Set of 5 for $11.95
Find them here.
Once you have the cloth bags, stick them in with your regular reusable grocery bags in the trunk or pop them into your purse or pocket. This way when you go shopping you will always have them on you. They are also the perfect size for small orders you get when out and about, we have found many uses for them outside of produce shopping. Simply wash and reuse them when they get dirty or after each use. They will last a long time, and make grocery shopping more fun.
You can look like the cool eco-conscious consumer you are when you whip those bad boys out in our produce section, and make everyone else jealous of how impressive your cloth bags are.
Obviously, you might forget them on occasion, and that’s perfectly okay. It’s just a great way to make a more consumer-conscious effort in reducing your plastic waste, and add some fun to your regular shopping trip.
Happy Shopping!
If you love food, you'll love us 
Would be wonderful if Lees/Clements would provide biodegradable produce bags at some point. I’ve read of some made from Yucca, and others made from Algae.
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We like mentioning the cloth bag produce bag approach for those who are trying to avoid single-use products. We would love to explore biodegradable products as an option, and will definitely have to look into it!
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