I proudly say that Veggie Bags are made in Canada.  And that's not due to a technicality of Canadian labelling laws.  They really are made in Canada - start to finish! I have long been an avid home sewer and environmentalist - so - Veggie Bags are just a natural marriage of these two interests.  I personally have used various kinds of net or fabric bags for my produce shopping for a long time, but I was constantly losing them and often ended up at the store without them.  Then I was back to the plastic!  The problem was organization.  Thus came the idea to package a set of bags in a handy pouch which can be attached to something - a purse or shopping bag, thus improving the likelihood that the bags make it to the grocery store with you!  Production of Veggie Bags started in my home.  While I still do the embroidery on the pouches, it soon became evident that I could not produce the kits in sufficient quantity.  The Veggie Bag kit is now being produced by the Women's Employment Resource Centre (WERC) in Woodstock Ontario.  This centre provides education, training and employment for women.  It is a great centre and I encourage everyone to visit their website (www.werc.ca and www.imogenes.ca )

A little bit of background information and history  Albert Einstein said,  "Today's problems will not be solved if we still think the way we thought when we created them." The convenience of throw away products that we have enjoyed is simply not sustainable. A change in the way we think is necessary to address the problems we have created.   History has shown that meaningful change always comes from a grass roots level - individuals making changes. Please take a few minutes to watch the Garbage Island video (link at the bottom of this page)

BE PART OF THE SOLUTION ! The plastics industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.  Statistics show that American retailers spend $4 billion annually on plastic bags.  Make no mistake - these bags are not FREE.  Their cost is factored into the products that we buy.  In San Francisco it is estimated that the cost to the city in cleanup is 17 cents per bag! (www.saskwastereduction.com). And that's just the beginning. The plastic that doesn't make it to the landfill ends up in the ocean.  In the middle of the Pacific Ocean there is an area known as 'Garbage Island".  This is an area twice the size of Texas. where ocean currents collect garbage - most of which is plastic.  Plastic degrades very slowly into smaller and smaller particles (right down to molecular size)  which are suspended in the water.  In many water samples taken from Garbage Island, plastic particles outnumber plankton.   Marine life ingests it, it works its way up the food chain to the top.......and that's us, folks! Captain Charles Moore has spent a number of years studying the Garbage Island phenomenon.  He states, "Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been pristine ocean, I was confronted as far as the eye could see with the sight of plastic." (Natural History, v112, n.9,Nov'03).               Take a few minutes to watch one of the many videos available on Garbage Island.  This is just one example.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a4S23uXIcM