Recycle your old reusable bags

ChicoBag and The Grateful Thread team up to give a second life to tired reusable bags while helping those in need.

Fri, Feb 18 2011 at 9:14 AM

Related Topics:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Social Responsibility

I have a pile of reusable grocery bags from Wegmans that I don’t use anymore. They sit at the bottom of the cabinet where I keep my bags. Some are ripped. Some have lost the plastic piece at the bottom that helps give them their shape. There’s not good reason I haven’t gotten rid of them until now, but now I have a good way to get rid of them.

The ChicoBag Repurposing Program accepts “all your tired masses of reusable bags, functional or not” and distributes them to people who need them or recycles them into new products with the help of The Grateful Thread.

The Grateful Thread takes the reusable bags that aren’t in good condition and handcrafts them into items like handbags, coasters, yoga mat bags, aprons and more. The proceeds from the sale of these items benefit Schuylkill Women in Crisis, a nonprofit organization that provides free and confidential services to victims of domestic violence in rural Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

The bags you donate will directly go to help those in need, either by becoming someone else’s reusable bag or being turned into an item that will ultimately benefit women in crisis. All we have to do is send our old, tired bags off to ChicoBag. The only cost to you is the price of postage.

The bags can be mailed to:

ChicoBag Company

C/O Zero Waste Program

349 Huss Drive

Chico, CA 95928

Image: Chicobag.com

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Comments: 11

Darla Jones Apr 27 2012 at 11:38 PM

I oversee a recycling department at at Goodwill. We get lots of these reusable bags which are not sought after for recycling. If you REALLY WANT these bags, please talk to me and I'll see what I can come up with. I'm a new manager and big corps are really slow to move but at least I could plant a seed. These bags really make me mad because they are not usefull for trash or dog poop and people KEEP DONATING THEM! But NO ONE BUYS THEM! Watching them go to the landfill is really irritating me.

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homeowner Jul 05 2011 at 9:37 AM

I m not sure why they are so hard to find. Most of the stores that I go to regularly have other types of trash bags. see here !

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Marc Azous Feb 22 2011 at 7:50 PM

Great stuff. We need more of this sort of innovation.
Marc Azous

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Greenwashing Feb 19 2011 at 12:06 PM

only 2-5% of plastic bags are recycled. And that's when the bins are right there at the supermarket where it is convient. People are NOT going to take the time to mail back a bag/bags and PAY for shipping. This is bs greenwashing for a bad product.

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Cheri Horgan Feb 19 2011 at 3:25 PM

Did you ever hear the story about the boy on the beach after a storm had washed up thousands of starfish? One by one, he bent down and pick them up and threw them back into the waves.An old man was sitting onthe rock watching, and finally could take it no more. He walked down to the boy and mocked his efforts telling him there was no way he could throw all those starfish back int he ocean, the few he had managed to throw back were making no differance at all. "No," the boy smiled as he threw another

.... More

one back, "But I made a differance to that one didn't I?" With your attitude we should just all abandon every effort to save our planet and watch as the life slowly disappears. I am not sure why you would even view a site like this one, except to sow seeds of discord...and we certainly don't need your comments to realize that there are many lazy people who just plain don't care. We can only hope your kind will be the first to vanish...

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Greenwashing Feb 22 2011 at 7:57 PM

Just because you write some cute little story doesn't change the facts. We can no longer choose the low level option. We need the RIGHT solution and this is NOT it. It's people like YOU who give the green movement a bad name. Stop being fooled by emotional pulls. Use your brain and see what these products really are, green-washed. They are made from oil just like plastic bags. Will not biodegrade just like plastic bags!! The road to hell is paved with good intentions.