Simple to Make, Easy to Use, Zero Waste Bulk Food Bags

Why Cloth Bags?

A few months ago, maybe longer, my husband and I really took a good look at how much of our trash is food packaging.

We were kind of astounded how much of our food came in plastic bags; nuts, oats, granola, flours, frozen veg and fruit, prepackaged veg and fruit and even loose veg and fruit that I put in a plastic bag out of what, habit?

The obvious first and easy step was mesh bags for loose produce and bulk shopping for dry goods.

However, soon after I started shopping in the bulk section, I realized I wasn’t actually eliminating waste. I was using paper bags to transport the bulk goods from store to house.

“Oh, I’ll just reuse them.”

That worked fine, for some bags; bags that you could count on to be relatively clean enough to reuse and not sticky from dried fruit. So, yeah, reusing the store bags didn’t work that well in the end.

The Cloth Bags

I needed the mesh produce bags to be non-mesh bulk food bags. That was a simple enough project if not obvious. I mean, flour used to come in cloth bags; flour sack dresses? flour sack towels?

And that reminded me of all these old kitchen towels I was given but didn’t really use. They were quality towels, some even lovingly embroidered but stained and a little too sad to put out for use.

What stumped me for awhile was how to get a bin number on the bag without being wasteful – so no stickers or twist ties you write on. Besides not all stores offer stickers or twist ties.

And then – boom – I got it. What does the Zero Waste Home woman do? She uses a washable color crayon to write the bin number on her bags. Of course. That’s perfect. (Credit where credit is due: my big aha moment wasn’t figuring it out myself but googling it)

These bags are:

• Easy to use.
• Convenient to take along to the store (unlike jars).
• Easy & quick to make (especially if you have a serger).
• Are washable (toss them in with your towels. Stickiness and bin numbers wash right off)
• Can be made with scrap fabric.
• Can be made from repurposed fabric.
• Produce no waste.

This video will show how to make the bags both with a serger (so darn fast) and with a sewing machine (which will work for hand sewing too).

It will show how to get the tare weight on the bag and all the different things you already own that you can use for the drawstring.

This is a quick project and not meant to be perfect. I try to put the appropriate amount of sewing time into a project based on what the project is. A bulk food bag is a “quick & dirty” level project

Enjoy your sewing time making your own set of bags, then enjoy the fact you’re not adding more plastic trash into our earth and seas.