The Recycled Fabric Grocery Bag and its origin*:

The Recycled Fabric Grocery Bag was first created in my experience by my mother, Anna, who has been sewing home-made bags as long as I can remember. Not just bags – many wonderful clothes, curtains, slipcovers and other fabric items, too. But her practical nature and unique circumstances led her to recycled bag making.

My father, Ted, was a Quality Control manager for a plastics company in NJ, and he would bring home rolls of rejected plastic sheeting from time to time when there was a batch that couldn’t be sold. My mother would take this plastic, cut it into bag size pieces, and sew them up with self-attached ties. Our trash was always color-coordinated in matching bags – yellow, blue, red – it all depended on the color of the rejected roll. One roll made dozens if not hundreds of bags!

The Reusable Fabric Bag is Born (in my family, anyway!)

My parents retired in 1989, and Anna no longer had a ready source of plastic. But, she did have leftover fabric remnants from over 50 years of sewing projects. She changed her pattern and styling, and began using up all those scraps of Kettle cloth, linen, cotton broadcloth and anything else that worked.

I’ve been taking them to the store for over 15 years. I wash them when they get soiled, and occasionally give one away when it is carrying something destined for a friend or family member. 95% of the baggers who see them in the grocery store comment on how cool and colorful they are. Other people use the unbleached cotton bags, or recycle their plastic and paper bags. I’ve recently seen foldable synthetic bags for sale at the grocery store, and many stores give a 5-cent rebate as a reward for every bag you bring.

The topic came up recently when my daughter wanted to make some to use for her own grocery shopping. I pulled out some fabric scraps and an old dress shirt that my husband wanted to get rid of. That got me thinking... and the rest is now history!

* I'm not suggesting that my mom was the original inventor of the fabric bag or the first person ever to conceive of it - she's just the first person I ever knew that did!

About Rags-to-Bags.com

This may sound like a bit of a cliché, but the idea of the rags-to-bags concept came to me after I watched 2 particular episodes of Oprah - the show regarding reducing waste and recycling, and the series of shows about releasing clutter from our lives.

I personally always feel challenged to get rid of clothes that are stained, soiled, ripped or out of style - but otherwise functional. It would seem an insult to give others clothes like this to wear, but I have no problem cutting up the clothes and using the fabric that still has lots of life left in it. So here is a way to clean out stuff I can't use, and know it will not fill up a dump somewhere.

This will be the first of a series of instructional sites related to recycling and reusing obsolete articles, either by repurposing or by reclaiming the composite materials. So, if you like what you see and you wish to support my efforts, please feel free to make a donation. Thanks!

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