Cotton bags

It was the year 2005 when the city of Mumbai realized how horrible the plastic bags can be. The plastic bags had clogged a lot of your tunnels which led to the flood in July 2005. As a corrective and preventative measure the government had decided to reduce the use of plastic bags. Though it was impossible to completely ban or stop the use of plastic bags. I was in a complete agreement with the government's measured. I decided to take a step further.

I had the stitching machine at my home. I decided to stitch the Cotton bags. This would completely cut down the inflow of plastic bags which we would get from fruit or vegetable vendors. One by one I started stitching cotton bags at home. To stitch tgese cotton bags I did not bring any fabric from outside. I would use the fabric at home.

Later I decided to take one step even further. I started using the scrap clothes to make the cotton bags. If the bed sheet was torn then I would take it to stitch my cloth bag. If the pillow cover was worn out I would take it to stitch another bag. If I had pieces of scrap fabric then I would stitch those together and turn that into a bag. I had also taken old t-shirts to stitch the Cotton bags.

Using the Cotton bags was not just limited to a sustainable habit. This would give me and opportunity to discover the creativity. It would be an amazing process to take the scrap fabric and stitching them together to form a long cloth so that I could make a bag out of it. This creative hobby would take away any boredom. After a creating such interesting and useful art projects I would feel relaxed and delighted. Also the bags would always stand out. At the supermarkets there would never be confusion in identifying the back because it would look different from anybody elses back.

This was one sustainable habit that I put my time and efforts into. That were a lot of blouse piece clothing at my home which we were not using. All those were converted into the cloth bags. I did not limit the use of cloth bag to myself and my family. Whenever any guest used to visit my home while they would leave I would give them of cloth bag as a gift. I would tell them that these are made from the leftover or scrap fabrics and they are handmade. Most guest would get delighted to receive cute handmade gift. They woyld appreciate the thoughtfulness of giving away such a wonderful and eco friendly gift. They would like it because it was useful. After all everybody likes to use different bags to get groceries.

This was one of my sustainable habits that had been I believe of great importance. Not only that I have reduced the use of plastic bags but I now have very usable attractive bags to take with me at shopping companions.

Another point that I would like to highlight is that in one of the corporate competitions on sustainability this initiative of mine won first prize. The reason was simple. This was an easy sustainable solution which did not require much investment and cost. It was budget friendly and easy.

If you have scrap fabrics or spare fabrics at your home I would urge you to use them into making cloth bags. Such small steps with help us in the long run.