Going Green

Our friend, the reusable shopping bag

Written by: Rocío Oporto

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but for some time now many people are seen on the streets carrying around reusable shopping bags or “bags for life” as some people call them. When did this new trend start? Because nowadays, you can find them almost everywhere, at the supermarket, at the mall, at a convention, some people may even give you one as a gift. So, you probably own a few, some of them you might have received as a courtesy gift from a shop and some of them you might have bought in an effort to be trendy and help the environment. For the record, the first reusable shopping bags saw the light of day in the early 90's. At the time, they came in different forms and were made of various materials, from cotton to nylon. Later on, these materials would be almost completely replaced by a polymer known as polypropylene (PP), which is the material that's currently used to make the reusable shopping bags that you can find in retail shops from all over the world. PP grocery bags took over the marketplace, mainly because they were durable and very cheap to produce (under $0.25 USD per bag). At the end of the 90's, the production of reusable shopping bags increased enormously. The United States International Trade Commission Import Database estimates that nearly as 3 billion of these bags were imported into the United States since 1999.

Traditional PP shopping bags

In Chile, the emergence of the reusable shopping bag is relatively recent if we compare it with other countries. In fact, the first reusable shopping bags appeared in 2008 thanks to a couple of siblings (Fernanda and Pablo Maturana) that saw a business opportunity were no one else did: they realized that this type of bag, a wide-spread trend in countries such as New Zeland, the UK, Australia, the United States, etc., didn't exist in Chile, so they decided to be the first to produce them. Their first important client who greatly contributed to place the reusable bag in the market was the multinational retail company Cencosud. From then on, their company (www.bolsasreutilizables.com) has attracted many other important clients and now they lead the latinamerican market of reusable bags. 

Cencosud's first reusable shopping bags

Never mind its origin, reusable shopping bags are certainly a good and efficient way to get rid of plastic bags. Because, as I’m sure you know, plastic bags are, with-no-doubt, evil. Studies have shown that a typical supermarket bag is used for 20 minutes and then discarded to pollute the earth, taking 400 to 1,000 years to disintegrate. Plastic bags end up being part of the waste that goes into the ocean and kills millions of sea birds and hundreds of animals. So, you see, when I say they’re evil, it’s not an exaggeration.  Fortunately, there is something you can do, just stop using them! Go for a trendier, greener and long-lasting alternative. Reusable shopping bags are cheap (from $500 to $2000 CLP) and come in different colors and designs. Don’t be afraid of showing off your green and durable shopping bag.  Think about all the hideous and pointless trends out here and tell yourself “at least I’m doing something significant with my eco-friendly bag”. One last thing, remember to have your bag with you at all times, you never know when you might need it! Every time you choose to use it instead of a plastic bag, you’ll be doing the world a favor.