I love my shopping bins...

A while back I was looking for something under the kitchen sink. It was nearly impossible because there were plastic grocery bags EVERYWHERE (and this is a 4'x10' space). I hauled them all out and got rid of them, compressed they filled an entire green garbage bag.

Halton Region (where I live) as well as the City of Toronto can not/do not recycle them, so they all go to landfill (or you can throw them under your sink and have them form their own "micro landfill").

Grocery stores in the Loblaws family (Loblaws, Fortinos, Zehrs, Great Canadian Superstores) offer shopping bins (pictured left, for purposes of scale the model is five years old) for their customers at most of their stores, they also use a slightly different cart design which allows for five bins to be places in the cart at once, all accessible. They cost about $4. On my next trip to the grocery store I purchased one to try. It was a good experience and the next time out I snagged another one.

I've been using them for about 8 months now and they make life so much easier, especially at the checkout. I can unload my cart onto the conveyor in under 10 seconds. It's also much easier to carry them into the house, one in each hand.

I purchased them for the convenience factor as well as the environmental factor (mostly for convenience though, it's nice when the two coincide... far too often are they in conflict). But, as an added bonus the Fortinos I go to gives a $0.03 discount for each bin you use to acknowledge the fact that you're not using bags. Three cents means nothing... I like to see it on my receipt though.

Now that the City of Toronto is considering a levy of $0.25 per plastic bag these may become more popular. Ireland has done something similar on a national level and reduced plastic bag usage by close to 90% in the first year.