There's paper. There's plastic. Then there's the $960 reusable Hermes shopping bag.
Originally designed for discerning Europeans, it hits America this summer, and if it sounds like an exotic fluke, consider the new $843 grocery tote by Italian designer Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni.
Or the $495 organic cotton canvas shopper, due out in June from Stella McCartney.
Or the now-famous I'm Not a Plastic Bag by the British handbag designer Anya Hindmarch, which has been selling at more than 10 times its $15 price on EBay.
Or even the latest addition to Trader Joe's lineup: a bright blue-and-green print polypropylene supermarket sack that has been flying off the shelves at $1.99.
In a confluence of politics, eco-consciousness, fashion and global commerce, yet another great, green notion appears poised for mainstream consideration: the bring-your-own shopping bag.
Until recently, those sturdy cloth totes that are common in Europe were mostly confined in this country to farmers markets and health food co-ops (and even there, only in the sternest, oat-iest styles and colors). Now, whether they are chic and pricey or cheap and cheerful, they are vehicles for a range of self-expression.
Part of the impetus is environmental. Among the ecologically minded, the paper-or-plastic question is an evergreen dilemma. Paper bags mean dead trees and paper-factory pollution, but most plastic bags are derived from petroleum and create litter that clogs landfills and takes as long as a thousand years to decompose.
Earlier this year, San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to ban the use of non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags. Since then, cities from Boston to Berkeley have taken up similar proposals. Los Angeles County is studying options ranging from an outright ban to better education on recycling; the city of Los Angeles is considering a pilot program with the state in which grocery chains would distribute reusable, subsidized canvas totes.
But the trend toward reusable shopping bags has also gotten a push from the fashion industry, particularly in Europe, where consumers tend to grocery-shop daily and laws encourage bag reuse -- and where designers have seized on the old-style tote bag like stylists going to work on an aging hippie in a beauty salon.
