Single-use plastic bags are not only wasteful, they cause serious damage to the environment and our health. Anne-Marie Bonneau, 56, is on a mission to put more reusable produce bags into the world. With the help of her sewing bee group, who make them from upcycled fabric, they’ve given more than 4,000 bags away.
As more cities and states implement plastic bag bans, Bonneau, who is known online as the Zero-Waste Chef, is helping people in California’s Silicon Valley make the move away from single-use plastic bags and spreading joy in the process.
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My interest in environmental causes began when I was a kid growing up in Eastern Ontario, Canada. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I helped my dad, who was freaked out about the oil crisis, build a solar heater for our pool. It was so simple and worked so well and saved us around $1,000 each summer. Some of our neighbors thought we were nuts and others thought my dad was brilliant. That made a big impression on me. I also remember going to Florida with my parents when I was about nine where we toured solar-powered homes.
In 2011, my older daughter and I decided to break up with plastic. One of the first things we did was to make our own really simple reusable produce bags and we’ve been using them ever since. In 2018, I organized a produce bag sewing bee to get more bags out into the world. Since then, my friends and I have met every month or two to sew the bags out of donated fabric and we give them out at a local farmers’ market in Sunnyvale, California. Covid slowed down sewing and distributing, but we’re back up to speed now.
Because we use unwanted fabric, we’re merely upcycling existing fabric, not buying virgin fabric to make these bags. The fabric was on its way to the landfill or thrift shop, which may simply be one stop away from the landfill. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans tossed 1.5m tons of towels, sheets and pillowcases in 2018, with only a 15.8% recycling rate.
I ask people for natural fibers because synthetics shed microplastics in the wash. Occasionally we’ll get a nice linen sheet. My last big batch of fabric came from my Buy Nothing group. I couldn’t pick up all the fabric people offered. Sometimes my friends and I will have a swap, and at the last sewing bee, one of them brought five big bins of stuff she had cleaned out of her mother’s house. We each took what we could use.
Everyone needs a job at our sewing bee so like a little factory we figured out it’s best to have a bunch of bags cut ahead of time before we meet. Once they’re cut, they just take three minutes to make. We have a couple of people sewing and there’s always somebody with a seam ripper to rip apart old pillowcases or fitted sheets. There’s quality control to make sure the bags don’t have holes. And one or two people cut out additional bags.
I’m usually busy plying people with tea and treats and threading the machines. I get the music on, usually 1980s or 1990s alternative, and we sew, socialize and snack. We usually have six to eight people and can crank out 100 to 200 bags in an afternoon. Even if no one wanted these bags (but they do!), the sewing bee is time well spent. It’s a social thing and we get together and catch up on what everyone’s doing.
When we give out the bags for free, people are so excited. You’d think we were giving away winning lottery tickets. People mob our table at the farmers’ market. Some look at us suspiciously and ask: “What’s the catch?” I tell them: “The catch is you have to use it.” People are really generous and they’ve donated money for thread and equipment, like a secondhand serger machine to speed up the line.
We’ve given away over 4,000 bags and I think we’ve spent about $8 of our own money. I’ve sewn the bags in person twice now at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco for Zero Waste Month. The giveaways start conversations on plastic pollution. At the farmers’ market, people will say things like: “I don’t like all of this plastic, but I don’t know what else to do.” I’ve had people say they’re going to make their own bags at home. People ask: “Can we steal this idea?” and I say: “Please do!”
When we started, my daughter and I would go to the farmers’ market and see a couple of people with reusable produce bags. Now I see more people with them or with containers for delicate produce like berries so they don’t get smushed.
California passed a plastic bag ban 10 years ago that led to the use of thicker plastic bags thanks to a loophole. A new law will ban all single-use plastic shopping bags as of 2026, and I’m so glad because those thick plastic bags make me cringe. But even if we bring our own shopping bags, most of us are still stuffing them full of plastic.
And the new textile recycling bill California passed is going to take a lot of time to implement, but it’s great – something has to be done. The amount of textile waste is crazy. Putting the onus on the producers will move the needle much more than my little group. We’re not going to run out of upcycled fabric even with that law.
My DIY climate hack is a series about everyday people across the US using their own ingenuity to tackle the climate crisis in their neighborhoods, homes and backyards. If you would like to share your story, email us at diyclimate@theguardian.com
