Shopping bag chronicles
“Great things start with small beginnings,” declares the little flyer that comes attached to my new shopping bag. “A tiny bean sprout, with a little water and sunlight, soon blooms to a wonderful green! With Beansprout, every humble desire to save the environment starts with the simplest of actions. Instead of non-biodegradable plastic, use this recyclable shopping bag whenever you shop, buy or carry anything around.”
As a serial shopper, I keep various shopping bags stowed in my car at all times. One oversize canvas bag that could fit a child, a gift from Summit Media last Christmas (it came filled with magazines), works as my all-around work bag whenever I borrow clothes for shoots. An ikat print cloth bag from my friend Karla functions as my magazine bag. Whenever I purchase magazines and books in bulk, I just stuff them all in there. Since it’s made of fabric, it doesn’t give me a backache like other bags do.
But these are large-scale bags, the kind I carry with me only when I know I’m purchasing something. And they can be cumbersome to bring every day. But what about those other times when I catch a glimpse of something cute in the window?
I used to stuff everything in my main bag, which is roomy enough for a few garments. One major accident later — a bottle of alcohol, rubbing alcohol by the way, I always carry in my bag spilled and practically damaged everything inside — and I decided to stop mixing business bag with pleasure bag.
When I got Beansprout, a nifty shopping bag made of nylon that folds into a tiny pouch, I tested it on an errand day.
After a couple stops at the bookstore, two clothing shops and Beauty Bar (for some Burt’s Bees shampoo and Camphor spray), the bag was filled with over two dozen products. Not bad for something so slight looking.
With its cute designs (mine have dolphins on them for cute’s sake!) and sturdy material (it’s perfect for marketing and perishables since the bag is washable), Beansprout makes a great gift for, to use Jenni Epperson’s term, shoppingeras.
Bags for Mother Earth
“A trip to Smokey Mountain was a wakeup call. As was finding out about the Great Garbage Patch,” says Nena Wuthrich. “Did you know that there is a swirling sea of garbage, roughly the size of Texas, containing 3.5 million tons of trash, floating somewhere between San Fransisco and Hawaii? There is! And these are just a few of the signs that our world is literally turning into plastic.”
Nena, along with two other partners, founded Mother Earth, a line of locally-made canvas shopping bags inscribed with such lines as “I heart my mother.” The trio discovered The Livelihood Shop in Taguig, a community of hardworking women who manufacture novelty items. “It started in 1989 when they began by getting the scraps from a nearby intimate apparel factory and started making their own bras,” she says. “Today they have 10 all-female sewers, all 40 years old and above, who expertly make our bags and five out-of-school youth who do the silk screening.”
“Mother Earth represents not just our own wish to help our planet battle against plastic, but also our hope to persuade more people to do so as well!” Nena declares.
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Beansprout is available at Aura Athletica at Power Plant Mall. For more info, e-mail beansprout.inc@gmail.com or visit beansproutbags.multiply.com. Mother Earth is available via their site mamaearth.multiply.com. E-mail hotmamaearth@gmail.com for more info.
