A lot of grocery stores are now selling reusable shopping bags - emblazoned with their logos of course - so that environmentally-concerned shoppers can eschew the “paper or plastic” conundrum and use neither. But what if you - like we in my household - shop at three different grocery stores? Must we get separate bags for each store? Or would it be rude to carry our Whole Foods Market bag into Publix and Kroger, too? And if we have to get separate bags for each store, where do we keep them all? They take up a lot of room in the car - but if they’re not always in the car, we might not have them when we need them.
Enter Olive Smart LLC, which has created an environmentally-friendly alternative to plastic bags that also solves those problems.
The small company started by two moms living near San Francisco - which recently banned plastic grocery bags - markets a nylon pouch containing six reusable shopping bags - one each in burgundy, black, navy blue, tan and olive green. The Olive Smart pouch is sized to fit in a standard car cupholder, so it’s always there yet never in the way.
As the Palo Alto Daily News reports, Olive Smart bags make great environmental sense.
San Francisco has banned plastic bags, which are rarely recycled and a major contributor to an enormous mass of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco. Scientists estimate it weighs several tons and is roughly twice the size of Texas. Plastic dumped in Bay Area waters can drift to it.
The Olive Smart website has lots of info about plastic bags - none of it will make you happy to use them.
The Olive Smart bags are designed to fit on the wire holders that hold plastic bags at the grocery, so that the clerks can easily load your groceries into them. The bags sell for $39 and are sold online at www.olivesmart.com. Might make a good Christmas gift.
