Who invented the shopping bag?

Walter H. Deubner, a grocer in St. Paul, Minnesota, observed that his customers’ purchases were limited by what they could conveniently carry. So he set about devising a way to help them buy more at one time. It took him four years to develop the right solution: a prefabricated package, inexpensive, easy to use-and strong enough to carry up to seventy-five pounds worth of groceries. The package consisted of a paper bag with cord running through it for strength. Deubner named his new product after himself, calling it the "Deubner Shopping Bag," and sold it for five cents. Deubner patented his product and within three years, by 1915, was selling over a million shopping bags a year. His invention, wonderful as it was, has since led to an ecological crisis. See www.badlani.com/blog/ To make paper shopping bags you need to cut down trees. A tree takes years to grow and you use a paper bag just once and throw it away. That is why most sensitive and aware people are saying no to paper shopping bags. Plastic is even worse. Plastic is a material that has a life of hundreds of years. It makes sense to use it for making canal linings or boats or roofs that need to withstand atmospheric degradation for long periods of time. It doesn’t make any sense to use it for shopping bags – something you will use once and throw away. But you can’t shop without shopping bags. It’s a good idea to use cotton shopping bags instead. They are re-usable, can be washed, and are completely environmentally benign. Or you could consider a jute shopping bag. Stylish texture and a long life. Cotton washes better. In fact, any fabric shopping bag is a good idea. Even if you use a man made fiber like nylon or polyester or polypropylene, which are not biodegradable like cotton and jute are, the fact that you re-use them makes them far kinder to the environment than plastic shopping bags are. Aren’t fabric bags more expensive? Yes, in the beginning they do appear to be. But just a wee bit. The fact that they get re-used soon makes them cheaper than any plastic bag. I make fabric bags in India. Look at my website www.badlani.com On my product pages, you'll be pleased to see how economical these great looking fabric bags can be. From the shop owner’s point of view they are much, much cheaper, because they display his name and logo every time they get re-used and become a walking billboard for him. The initial low price of a shopping bag hides another fact. That the eventual disposal of the plastic shopping bags you throw away is something that is costing you more and more in terms of taxes every year. So, here's my appeal to you as a fellow inhabitant of Earth. PLEASE switch to fabric shopping bags from today. Have a contrary point of view? Would you like to discuss this? Mail me at rajiv at badlani.com. I love a good discussion. A good argument is even more fun.