My favorite Eco–bags: Box bags made by Planet E!
Are you looking for Eco-bags for shopping? I use the ones made by Planet E and want to recommend this reusable bag to anyone! This is a type of bag with a box shape to stand up, stay open and fold flat with two tote handles. When I go grocery shopping, I normally use two box bags with one med-sized insulated cooler bag. Along with my insulated cooler bag(for meats, yogurts, cheeses), surprisingly each of these boxes hold TONS of groceries, and all of my weekly grocery-needs (a family of 2-3) fits perfectly! The box bags are light-weight and foldable, they are so easy to carry. When I go to Aldi, I only need to carry one cooler bag as 2 box bags are folded flat and fit INSIDE the cooler bag nicely.
Their uses can be versatile and endless. Besides shopping, we use them as a snack box or foods box, leaving them in the backseat when we go on a car trip. My husband uses them as a library book box. He says it is very convenient to carry dozens of books at once for borrowing or returning books. I am sure they would be quite useful when organizing things, downsizing or moving, too. You can also use it as a project box for sewing or art projects.
I bought 8 of these for $4 each this past spring at Walmart in Columbus OH, but they don’t always carry these and the timing of their availability is unpredictable, but there are many great-looking box bags available on Amazon. Among them, I like the ones made by Planet E. The size is perfect (11×13 x10) for me to lift up and walk with the box full of groceries from the store to my car. If it is a little deeper or wider than this, it might become too heavy or too cumbersome for me to handle. The Planet E boxes are durable and heavy duty because each handle of the tote box is attached very securely with 4 pins instead of 1 pin to the box. As you can expect, they have never broken after all these years of our heavy use.
The cons for the Planet E boxes are that they are not washable (spot-clean only) and the choice of the colors/designs is quite limited compared to other brands on amazon. The first box sets we bought several years ago have gotten old and worn, so they are officially retired from weekly-grocery shopping and now they are used as a sorter of my husband’s books by the category. If anyone uses washable box bags from other makers, do me know how you like them because I am interested. Thanks!
-Hiromi Kikuchi, RCE Explorer Member, July 13, 2024