I Am Not a Plastic Bag

"Sainsbury's launched I'm Not A Plastic Bag in 450 stores on the 25th April. Due to overwhelming demand all stock has now sold out." I heard in the greengrocers (yes, an exotic location for fashion gossip), that Blackpool had a queue to buy these shopping bags,with people coming from Preston to buy them and a quick look at ebay has £5 shopping bags going for £7 and the original designer ones for £50+ quid. According to the BBC they are made in China (big on sweatshop conditions, low on workers rights, eg. to have a break, fair pay) and flown here (so a big carbon footprint). So really just a way of getting a luxury brand lots of press and fake green credientials. I wish people would get a grip.

So I made one myself.

Step 1: Materials

First you need a bag. For superduper eco ethical credentials you need an organic fairly traded bag. This is a tote I think in the US and a shopping bag in the UK. People Treeprovided the one I used for £5 plus postage. It has a print on one side. The other item you need is a marker pen or fabric pen. I used a Dylon fabric pen in Black which cost about £1.20. (I have no idea about the ethics of Dylon, so don't blame me if they turn out to be supernasties, as there was no choice of make at my local haberdashery "Blacks" on Deansgate, Blackpool, Lancashire).This photo is of the Sainsbury's Anya Hindmarch bag which had people queuing to buy all over the UK & sold out.

Step 2: Just Like the One From Sainsburys, or Nearly Anyway

This is really simple. Just write your chosen witty message in your neatest printed (not joined up) handwriting. Wait a sec for it to dry and iron over it to fix it. The original designer Anya Hindmarch bag had "I am not a plastic bag" in a fancy font (see the photo)and the Sainsburys one said "I am not a plastic bag either" in very plain writing.

Step 3: And Finally

you get to say "Actually I mde it myself" which is so much cooler than "actually I waited outside a supermarket for three hours and elbowed people out of my way to have the latest thing." Here is what mine looked like, though the scuff on the bottom are from using it on the handles of my wheelchair (so yours needn't have the wheelchair dirt on it). Total time taken 5 minutes. It took longer to remember where the iron was. Total cost approx £6.20.