Paper or Plastic

So a while back the local Safeway transitioned the bags in the produce section to a thinner, supposedly compostable bag. I'm all for not killing turtles and whatever, but these bags have been pure cancer to use. The hot knife that makes the perforations between the bags always seems to seal the top of the bag closed, so it takes a good 30 seconds to try to find the seam and somehow tear it back open, and then the bags are so flimsy that literally just unfolding them will often cause them to tear right up the side, sending you back to the roll to grab another, and another, until you finally get one that holds together.

Excuse my skepticism, but I don't see how that's at all environmentally friendly.

So what's my solution? I'm making my own damn produce bags.

The material for today is a 30x60 inch piece of utility mesh fabric, and a roll of 1 inch webbing.

The mesh is quite stiff and shows no signs of unravelling, which is good. I was worried it might be a bit flimsy and fray-prone, but that's definitely not the case. In fact, it's stiff enough that you can fold it like paper.

As an aside, the way this type of fabric is knit is kind of crazy. (At least, I think this is made using a Raschel machine, I could be wrong).

Anyway, I'll need a 12x30 inch slice of this for one bag, so out comes the rotary cutter.

And the first piece of mesh is ready.

I'll also need 2 12" lengths of webbing, and we'll not forget to seal the ends as it is highly prone to fraying.

The webbing goes on the short ends of the mesh, and I'm using an overlocker for this task.

The mesh then gets folded back over the overlocked edge and I run a regular lockstitch seam down the length to keep it in place.

So that gives us a reasonably nice look and a very solid connection between the mesh and the webbing.

Next up, one edge gets folded down by 3 inches, then the other edge gets folded up to sit just above it, leaving 1 inch of mesh at the top.

The naked side of the mesh is showing here so that it will end up on the inside later.

Since the webbing is pretty bulky and everything is slippery, I'm tacking things together around the webbing using a lockstitch.

And then both sides get shoved through the overlocker to stitch them up.

Then the bag gets turned right-side out.

And the webbing in the seam allowance gets folded over and stitched down.

This keeps the webbing from trying to roll the seam to one side.

And then that's it, the bag is complete.

The stiff webbing gives it a convenient fold-top closure so I can just toss my produce inside without fussing with closures like zippers, magnets, velcro, or whatever.

Repeat this 4 more times and I've got a set of 5 identical bags.

Well, mostly identical. The especially keen-eyed among you might have noticed that one bag is an inch narrower than the rest. Why is that, you may ask?

It's because this cutting mat is stupid, and they print the inch markings on the INSIDE of the grid.

This has messed me up a number of times. Oh well, at least this time it wasn't anything critical.

In case you're curious, a finished bag is about 25g or 0.9oz, so not really substantial and probably well within the margin of error of the scales they use at the checkout.