Grocers Go Green with reusable bags

Remember when hippies were the only people who would take cloth bags to the grocery store (and by grocery, we mean Whole Foods and the local food co-ops)?

Not anymore. If you’re still lugging your groceries home in plastic bags – you might want to rethink that. Minimally, you might consider using the bags, then bringing them back and using them again – or taking them back to the recycling bins at the market. All King Soopers and City Market stores in Colorado have recycling bins for plastic bags, and the effort has paid off. Over 440,000 plastic bags are recycled each week through the program. The stores also give shoppers 5 cents per bag that is reused. If you go the paper-bag route, you’re using bags made of recyclable materials, but which take double the resources to manufacture. Paper bags can be reused both at the grocery store and at the recycle center (filled with old newspapers).

Trail Daugherty, spokesperson for King Soopers and City Market stores, is excited about the next step the company has taken: offering shoppers the choice of three canvas bags for eco-conscious shoppers. The 13 by 8-inch canvas bags are 99 cents, insulated bags that size are $2.99 and the canvas zippered totes, which are 4 inches larger, go for $4.99. The bags are sturdy enough to last for years, and the environmental gods will look kindly on you for using them.

Other stores in the Denver metro area that recycle plastic bags and sell resuable ones include Sunflower Market, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Wal-Mart. Safeway also sells reusable bags.