Shopping Bag

As everyone gets more "environmental"-conscious, a new range of products fill the shelves in retail - the shopping bag! The alternate to plastic! Say no to plastic and bring your own shopping bag.

Gone are the days you would collect lovely thick, beautifully-designed paper bags from department stores. Now, people would love the reusable cloth bags. About 2 years back, I remember visiting the bookstore in Singapore and I noticed a number of magazines were giving free cloth shopping bags to encourage people to bring their own. Wow.. that's nice.

In fact, some places have started to encourage shoppers to bring their own bag by charging plastic bag. Cold Storage has a no-plastic-bag day on Thursday if I'm not mistaken. Bodyshop does not provide plastic bag on the few occasion I visited them and they suggest I place the item into my bag. Aeon Jusco sells reusuable shopping bags to encourage shoppers to recycle as shown in this article.

Another new breed of bags is the foldable "umbrella" bags. Some have conveniently designed that it will be folded into another smaller pouch while others can fold into a small piece. I've seen one shaped like a little strawberry - so cute! It's RM9.90 in stores.

Why do I call it "umbrella" bags? It's because of the material used which reminds me of the umbrella material. Not too sure if it's the same but it feels like it - light weight and waterproof? Have yet to try if it's leak proof. Ha!

I got myself a few of these "umbrella" shopping bags today. It's only RM4.95 from Guardian pharmacy with a few simple designs.

Why I want these? Not just for shopping (which I hardly remember to bring along as I don't carry handbags all the time) but I noticed that it works well to carry dirty laundry! It also gives me the impression it should be waterproof that I can carry my wet towel and swimsuit after a swim. Will try that soon! Plus, I read somewhere in the newspaper that this bag would be useful for additional carry-on during rough travels.

Hence, go grab yourself one of these and stuff into your bag to join in the season of "environmentally"-consicous citizens! ;)

Psst.. I think it'll make cheap convenient and practical Christmas present too if you're really out of ideas. Lol!