There is a wonderful thing happening in our country these days and no matter which side of the isle you stand, you should care. This wondrous event is related to all the attention and talk about going Green. Whether you agree or disagree with the existence of Global Warming, there is certainly no harm in saving the environment and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. One way to do your part is by no longer using plastic or paper shopping bags. Your alternative is to turn to reusable shopping totes. There has been quite a lot going on within this debate for the last few years.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion). And in 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce nearly 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans in a single year. And both of these items take a very long time, if ever to fully biodegrade.

Many European countries may levy a charge for having your groceries bagged in plastic and some individual U.S. companies are following suit. Perhaps the best is example is San Francisco. As reported by ‘The Independent’ of the U.K., “San Francisco has become the first American city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and chemists’ shops (Pharmacies).” As this trend continues to grow around the world this is the time to take a harder look at shopping totes and reusable bags and the potential of this market.

I believe the arena for custom shopping totes and other tote bags is still in its infancy. If you think about it, just as with most decorated apparel and other accessories there are countless groups that love to show their identity with a logo or slogan. So why not do that at the supermarket, where you may already be showing off your favorite teams colors. As a decorator you may even consider approaching the actual stores to address the reasons they should be selling shopping totes. For one they may know of the impending doom to our old way of carrying groceries. Secondly it would seem like a great idea to put their own branding on the totes. This will give them much more exposure than plastic or paper because once you bring a tote home and remove all your items, they are not immediately headed for the trashcan. With the number of Americans that already love to show off their favorite team, vacation spot, musician, or faith on a t-shirt – you can bet they will make that same move when being required to use a reusable shopping tote.