The Ultimate Re-Usable Grocery Bags: 4ever Bags
Filed Under: Green Technology on September 22, 2009
At the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Far this past weekend, we stopped at a booth run by Rodney Cyr who represents 4ever Bags. We weren’t sure what these were, but while at the booth next to him looking at natural baby products, I’d overheard the sales pitch and conversation he’d had with a couple of ladies and got interested.
Looking at the products, I was amazed at the simple idea that was definitely a winner in many ways.
The idea is plain: take the same kind of light and extremely durable and strong triple-thick poly-nylon, the bags are in threes collected on a carrying handle made of a large caribiner clip with a soft coating on the upper handle. The bags are capable of carrying pretty heavy loads without trouble and the clip makes it easy to group them for easy carrying.
Getting to know them better, while talking, I learned that the bags are made from 40% recycled materials–the most they could use without compromising the longevity and strength of the bags. The carbiners are also from recycled materials and are capable of bearing 150 pounds of weight. The bags are triple-stitched and have no bottom seam, which ads to their strength and carrying capacity.
Other cool features include the built-in bag pouches each bag has, making it store easily (just roughly fold it and stuff it into its own pouch). This also makes it so that if you take all three to the store in your pocket (the carrying handle and three bags in their pouches easily fit into a cargo or jacket pocket) and you only need to get the bag(s) you’ll need out of their pouches for easy carrying back home or even around the store while you shop.
We bought a set of these (I now wish I’d bought 2 or 3) and instantly found use for it to put all of the vegetables (mostly squash) we’d bought from a farmer’s booth earlier. This made carrying much easier. By the time we’d left the fair, my little carrying case (with all of the brochures and copied information from vendors I wanted to check out and write about for various websites) was in another bag along with more stuff we’d acquired. The single handle supporting both bags made it really easy to carry.
The bags come off the handle, of course, for single use if you’d like. We used one just last night to clear out our green tomatoes and what’s left of the cucumber crop from our garden as last night was our first killing frost here in Wyoming. The bag was STUFFED and did just fine.
These bags are very lightweight, water resistant, machine washable, and can carry about sixty pounds each regularly. They come with a “forever” warranty, so if you don’t abuse them, you can always return them for a replacement. We have the normal nylon grocery bags you can buy or get from businesses as a promotion and while those are great, they have nothing on these 4ever Bags.
The poly-nylon is water repellent and bacteria-resistant, non-toxic, non-corrosive, and non-allergenic too. They’re made locally in Greenwood Village, Colorado and 4ever Bags are part of The Environmental Coalition.
Totally awesome!
Plus, I found these just in time to help do our part to participate in this Saturday’s (September 26) Ban the Bag event, a world-wide movement to ban plastic shopping bags. Go here for more information on how you can participate.
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