Product Review - Neela Bags

To assuage my guilt for contributing thousands of diapers to the world's landfills (amongst other environmental indiscretions), I finally broke down and bought some reusable shopping bags.

I'd say I was going green, but as you'll see, they are blue.

I got them from Neela Bags and so far I am loving them. I got the market pack in the blue print. It comes with five shopping bags that fold up and fit into one holder bag:




I've unfolded one bag to show you how large it is compared to the folded ones and the holder:




And here they are after last week's grocery shopping (which also included hurricane supplies, so more items than usual):




I've used them for a trip to the library and I'll probably use them when we do some clothes shopping for Sydney later this week. And since they fold up nice and neat into the little pack, I don't have to worry about having big, bulky bags taking up space either in the house or the van (since I haven't decided where to keep them yet). I can even stick one in my purse before going into a store.

I do think, however, that I need to load groceries into them myself. The bagger at the grocery store didn't quite know what to do with them and the bread got squished. But, as long as I can shop without the kids in tow, I don't think bagging my own items will be an issue.

I did quite a bit of research and asked around before deciding on the Neela bags. Most of the grocery stores in our area carry their own brands of reusable bags and while they all looked dependable, I didn't want my bags to have the name of a particular store on them since I shop all over. The Neela bags are hand-washable (hang to dry) and the patterns are just adorable; I liked the pink pattern as well as the blue. And, if you enjoy shopping for wine, they even carry wine bags (just for you, Sherri).