For years I have shopped at grocery stores and have carried home the groceries in plastic bags. I know it’s not good for the environment, and we have tried to recycle or reuse these as much as we can. Some have suggested using paper bags, but those are so hard to find now, and they require killing a tree anyway, so they’re not much better.

Last week I saw a video that literally changed my mind about my shopping. This guy said we don’t need shopping bags. And yesterday I tried out his system. It worked great.

I went to Wal Mart. I got the groceries that I wanted and put them in my cart. I went to the checkout, and instead of putting stuff in bags, I got a second cart, scanned something, then put it in the new cart. The cashier came over when she saw me throwing stuff into the cart without bags, and said, “Do you need help bagging your groceries?” I said, “No thank you,” and went about my business. She backed away, confused. I scanned everything, and then paid, leaving an empty cart behind me, and a full one in front.

When I was done the cashier said she would take care of the empty cart (she was probably being nice to the crazy person, in her mind), and I pushed my cart to the exit. The lady at the door who was checking people’s receipts burst out laughing when she saw my cart. As she told me, she is supposed to check receipts for everything people buy but don’t put in a bag. She just laughed and waved me on. I explained about the system, and she said that sounded great.

So I pushed my cart full of groceries out to my car. And then I opened the trunk, and put all the groceries into the two laundry baskets in the trunk. Well, I left the water bottles, milk, and cat food out, but everything else went in the baskets. Then I drove home, and instead of grabbing six bags for each hand, I just picked up a laundry basket and carried it in. Total plastic bags used: ZERO. The guy in the video suggested using these collapsible crates from Amazon.com but they cost $64 for three crates and the laundry baskets cost $3 each at Wal Mart.

Oh, and by the way, my cousin who works at WM told me: when they stop you at the door and ask to see your receipt, you aren’t obligated to show them. Just say “no thank you” and keep going. They won’t stop you.