Canada's Greenest Shopping Bag

Twice the size of a standard plastic grocery bag, this revolutionary shopping bag does more than just carry groceries; it actually helps you do your part to protect the environment.

It may be hard to believe but the product you're holding is made of recycled plastic. While polyester contains mostly virgin plastic fibres, the material used to make this bag comes from 85% post-consumer recycled plastic. In fact, we've used soft drink and water bottles collected from recycling facilities to create this soft yet sturdy shopping bag. This saves valuable petroleum-based raw materials and reduces the consumption of non-renewable energy needed to create new polyester. Best of all, those plastic bottles that could have eventually ended up in landfill sites are put to good use!

By using this bag for your weekly grocery shopping, you will use approximately 100 fewer plastic bags per year. That's less clutter in your cupboards and more importantly, less plastic getting thrown out. And of course, when your shopping bag reaches the end of its life, it can be fully recycled.

This bag is marketing genius. I was stunned to see it at a regular sale price of .99 cents. I wondered why they would sell it so cheap. I mean, this bag is nice looking, it's really large with a square bottom, so it's roomier like the old paper grocery bags. I would even use it for a book bag, or to bring eggs and milk home from the Mission.

Think about it. They have to supply enough bags made to fulfill the demand in all their stores across Canada: Extra Foods, Superstore, and Loblaws. On top of that, if you use the bag along with your President's Choice credit or debit card, you get 50 extra points. This creates further branding and customer loyalty. If you don't have one of the cards, it encourages you to get one. If you have a card AND a bag, you are more likely going to shop there. It's like Air Miles on steroids.

All that, and the feel good feeling of saving the earth.

One of the books I listened to this summer on vacation was "Easier Than You Think: because life doesn't have to be so hard--The Small Changes that Add Up to a World of Difference," by Richard Carlson. One of his chapters was on saving 100 bags per year with a simple solution of a reusable shopping bag. The collective goal of President's Choice is a billion bags this year! The reason Carlson said this is such a simple idea is that you just throw them in your trunk and leave them until the next trip to the market. This takes mere seconds.

I bought 4 bags and I think you should too.