The Trauma of a Being a Bag Hoarder (and the true meaning of a ‘bag for life’)

Sunday morning I decided to be PRODUCTIVE. I was going to sit down and hem a skirt which, when I bought, was totally convinced that my five foot two frame would totally fill out an item marked as ‘tall’. Needless to say, once reality had resumed, I realised a good few inches had to come off the skirt and to do that, I needed my sewing machines. Which meant I had to venture into The Cupboard.

The Cupboard is present in almost every house up and down the country. It’s where you store Stuff. (Stuff being everything that you can’t quite find a home for anywhere else). My Cupboard has everything in it from brooms, clothes and towels, to paint scrapers and screwdrivers. And the bag bag – the one bag which contains every other bag you’ve ever had, ever. Which you’ve promised yourself you’ll reuse, especially now the 5p bag charge has come in.

Now, I love the Earth. I’m quite a big fan of being about to breath clean air and of the simple things like trees and flowers. However, one thing I am hopeless at is reusing my bags. I try, I honestly do. But more often than not, I get to the checkout till and make that quick snap judgement, ‘Is two pints of milk, three cans of soup and a bag of spinach too much to carry in my arms? Or shall I just…?’ before guiltily leaving with my shiny new, planet guzzling plastic bag in hand. Which, inevitably, ends up in The Cupboard.

Anyway, this particular Sunday morning, I opened The Cupboard to get my sewing machine when an avalanche of bags suddenly rained down on me, puddling at my feet (and half way to my knees). Tesco bags mingled in with the much nicer Sainsbury’s one (seriously Tesco, how are we supposed to reuse that?! Up your game please!), lovely paper bags in with the even fancier canvas. Hundreds of bags which, until this moment, had been waiting in the dark for their moment to pounce!  Realisation struck. It was time to tackle this monstrosity.

The next hour was spent sorting – nice bags into one bag, practical bags (like the classic giant IKEA one!) into another and those long past their best into the bin. Most importantly however, one sturdy practical bag made it into my handbag where I vowed never ever ever to be without it again…

So what is the moral of this story? Well, I’m pretty sure whoever came up with a ‘bag for life’ didn’t mean for us to hide them away in our cupboards until the end of time. Be better than me and try your best to reuse and recycle, not just hoard!

P.s – I eventually did also manage to hem the skirt – look at all that productivity!