I’m not a huge environmentalist, just a minor one, although parts of the article in today’s Salon about the scourge of those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags alarmed me.
It made me think about two things: first, my friend Beth’s “everyday” bag, which her Mom crocheted for her out of strips of black, yellow, white and blue plastic grocery bags. I didn’t even realize what it was made of until I looked closely. It’s oddly stylish, lightweight but sturdy, water resistant and hews strongly to the second demand of the environmental credo, “reduce, reuse, recycle.” If you are crafty, check out this link to a Craft magazine link-roundup covering an array of totes and clothing one can make out of plastic grocery bags.
I also thought of designer Anya Hindmarch’s infamous canvas totes that are screen-printed in cursive with the smug sentence, "I'm not a plastic bag." They went on sale in Britain in April for $15 apiece but are now showing up on eBay for as much as $300. I’ve now seen them over the shoulders of fashionable young ladies on the subway and the streets here in New York, so I can tell you they have reached Full Popularity Status.
The inevitable reprisal item, as noted by Salon’s brief article on Hindmarch, has already appeared with British designer Marissa Vandersee’s “I’m not a smug twat” bag. Me, if my Babel-Fishy French is correct, I’d like to see a canvas bag emblazoned with the Magritte-like statement, “Ce n'est pas un sac de toile.” I’d tote that.