Turtle Bags – Product Review

An old concept revitalized. The shopping net, the string bag, is back.

Review by Michael Smith

Using plastic, especially the one time use, shopping bags is becoming as frowned upon and socially unacceptable as smoking in a building other than one's home, and rightly so.

Aside from the fact that there is very little that can be done with those bags, even in ways of recycling, after use they frequently, far too frequently in fact, end up littering up the countryside and get into rivers and streams and ultimately into the seas. In all those areas and instances they endanger wildlife and in the seas especially the likes of turtles.

Myrtle the Turtle is not fond of plastic bags in the sea; it can be fatal to her, in fact.

The reason is that turtles that some into our inshore waters for jellyfish are increasingly mistaking our plastic bag waste for jellyfish.

Plastic bags are a hazard; Turtle bags are a gentler alternative.

Turtle bags are a relaunch, basically, of a product that many of our mothers and grandmothers knew very well and used daily for their shopping trips to the local stores and the markets.

The bags are strong, made with natural fibers, entirely biodegradable if and when they have to be disposed of, reusable again and again, as well as ethical and practical. The dyes are Azo free.

The Classic Strings are the initial range of the Turtle Bags and they come with short or long handles. Handles is a case of horse for courses, I know, and some people prefer short ones while others, myself included in that list though I must say “in most cases”, prefer long handles. Long handles allow for the bag to be carried on the shoulder and this can be convenient when the load is rather heavy.

This Classic String bag is made of what could be referred to as standard cotton version and there is also an organic cotton range, the Organic Strings. They all come in a range of colors; the Classic Strings have more colors than do the Organic Strings. They are Made in India.

Turtle Bags have also other bags in their range and they can all be found on their website at www.turtlebags.co.uk. Check them out and kick the plastic habit.

Turtle Bags promotes and supports the work of the Marine Conservation Society. For more information on their work with turtles visit www.mcs.org.uk.

The recommended retail price for the Classic Strings is around 5 GBP and that of the Organic Strings is 5.50 GBP.

© M Smith (Veshengro), March 2009
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The String Bag, the net, is making a comeback

by Michael Smith

When I was a child it was a common sight to see a housewife taking home her groceries in a string bag and children too who had been sent on errands used this bag in which to carry home the things they had been sent to fetch.

It sort of died a death in the same way as the ordinary shopping bags made of various materials, from leather and burlap to American cloth, and everything in between. This was due to the arrival of the plastic grocery bag and especially the free one; for initially you had to pay a few pence for the shoppers from the supermarkets and stores.

Now, where we have finally realized – most of us at least – and helped by the fact that the stores now, in the main, no longer simply stuff things into a carrier bag – that we cannot go on this way and the plastic carrier bag.

Now that we are encouraged – and to a degree forced – to bring our own reusable shoppers again people have taken to bringing shoppers of a variety of materials, which often have been sold somewhere for a cause.

The first time I ever really saw the string bag again, for sale, so to speak, was at the recent Top Drawer Spring trade fair that was held at London's Earl's Court. Not that there were many selling those. In fact only one company was there doing so and I shall be doing a more detailed review on the bags and the company in a separate piece.

The bag encountered at Top Drawer Spring 09 were “Turtle Bags”, made from natural cotton, handmade in India. They come in a variety of colors all of which, I believe, being created with natural dyes.

Some folks may feel a little strange using a net, especially the males of the species, of which I am one – a male, I mean, though not someone who would feel strange using a shopping net – and also for the fact that anyone really can see what one has bought but, so what.

The string bag, the shopping net, was what every woman tended to carry on her – rolled up in the apron pocket (the older village and town's women) or in her handbag, whether or not she actually headed tot he stores.

Mind you then, in them days it was the little grocery stores where you also bought things loose and which were then put into paper bags and into the net and fetched home. Today everything is so over-packaged and this is the greatest source of the rubbish that we create.

Now that we have the shopping net back, can we also have the loose goods back?

© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
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