I always wonder as I plop my grocery store bags down on the conveyor if the checkout clerks and baggers hate me.
It’s probably easier for them to use the uniformly sized plastic bags emblazoned with the store logo, already set up on a rack to be filled. Instead, I ask them to rifle through my ragtag bag of bags to stack groceries in what I’ve given them.
I know at home dozens of their plastic bags collect in a basket, until there’s just too many and I have to find a way to get rid of them. So, as often as I remember, I use my own cloth bags.
If you’re sick of the plastic bags, too, and want to cut down on the waste, you can make your own bags with just one thing: T-shirts.
Shirts that are too small for you and too hole-filled or paint-splattered for the thrift store can be cut into bags to tote your groceries home in.
Start by cutting the sleeves off and widening the neck hole. The remaining shoulder parts are your handles.
Then you have two options.
For a clean finish-looking bag, you can sew the bottom of the shirt together.
If you would like something a bit more fun – or if you’re sewing averse – cut the bottom of the shirt, front and back together, into strips about a half inch apart and three inches deep. Then, tie strips in double knots.
The bag is done at this point. However, if you want to give the bag some extra flair and stretch, you can cut slits in the fabric.
And it’s not just groceries you can use T-shirt bags for: use them as totes for beach trips, as book bags or use nicer shirts to make gift bags.