My Eco-Bags arrived!

My order from Eco-Bags arrived on Saturday, just in time for me to take them to the Union Square Greenmarket for some pre-Thanksgiving shopping.

The order for produce bags was placed before I got a tip from Green Cat about local-to-NYC bags from Organic Needle. When I need more, I will look there!

So far the Eco-Bags are great, with a few drawbacks. They arrived in a plastic-ish USPS soft mail pouch. Hmm, are these recyclable? I may have a candidate for a re-usable compost bag in that. The other drawbacks: made in India, and not pre-shrunk.

Now, I am not entirely anti-globalization. I am glad to know that someone overseas is earning a living helped by my purchase. But a local purchase would save a lot of petroleum getting the product to me. Not pre-shrunk means that if I want the bags to stay the same size, I have to wash in cold and line dry-- making it harder to sanitize them. I'm not all that paranoid about germs and bacteria, but I am a meat eater-- which means that my produce bags may get meat liquids on them on the way home from the store. I'll want to sanitize them every once in a while.

But the good news is-- no more plastic produce bags!

I have a failure to report from the weekend-- I was not brave enough to live out loud. It was my first time eating in a restaurant post-reduced plastic pledge. I went for a run in Central Park with a friend, then we got wine and pizza afterwards. I didn't have my water bottle with me and asked for a "glass glass of water". It arrived in a plastic cup. I didn't speak up. I should have.