It's often challenging to do the right thing. Purchasing food from bulk bins is a way to avoid unnecessary packaging, but then we often resort to using brand new plastic bags in order to cart it home. Molly de Vries of Mill Valley, CA is devoted to the non-disposable life and has developed these sweet little furoshiki-style cloth sacks as one way to manage the plastic bag dilemma.
The bags are made of cloth and are sewn so they square-up and sit steady on the bottom, making them easy to fill. The tops come up in two points and can be tied furoshiki-style to close the sacks. Molly says the bags are based on a classic Japanese design and took quite a while to figure out. Geometry!
Molly sources her fabric by reclaiming unused cloth locally. The sacks come in a large size which is 10" long x 5" wide and 6" deep and holds about 6 pounds of potatoes (for example.) The small holds about 7 or 8 medium potatoes and measures 7" long x 41/2" wide and 4" deep.
You can look for Molly at the Berkeley, CA Farmers' Market and other Bay Area FM or in her shop on etsy. She is also looking into more pop-up and farmers' markets in the Bay Area. The bags run between $10-12.00 for a set of two or $40.50 for a set of nine.
PS I've just started using my pretty flowered origami sack, purchased from Molly at the SF Underground Market, but I love it already. It's handy for bulk grains and such, but also for those times when you purchase a handful of small, rolly things like radishes or figs and you don't want them to get squashed in your larger grocery bag. Even the checkout lady commented on it!
Visit Molly's website for lots more photos and enter to WIN a FREE set of origami bags!
Related: Wrap Your Gifts in a Towel, Furoshiki-style
(Image: Molly de Vries)
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These are cute! And much easier to carry back and forth from the store than if you take your own glass jars.
I think your checkout lady is more progressive than the ones I get, before the bag tax passed in DC they made such a fuss about putting my groceries in my reusable bags sometimes! I'm glad the city's tax is making reusable bags mainstream if for no other reason!
Those green plastic produce bags have worked great for me, and were something like 24 for $1 at the dollar store. I wash and reuse, and they have the added benefit of making the produce last so much longer.
Do these need to be weighed before purchase?
If anyone's interested in making the bulk bin trip a little smoother, I just wrote a blog about it! http://moorethanfine.blogspot.com/2010/07/bulk-bins.html
These look very clever. We have some small size reusable bags at the farmer's markets but could use some more. I love the larger size.
I love these! just so you know, I included these in my recent post about a few ways to travel green. Yay!
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