I'm another one who needs the bags for cleaning up after pets and lining waste baskets. If I ever had more than I need I could leave them in a special recycling bin for them in front of most grocery stores around here. I think the biggest irony is the person who will be using a special cloth bag to carry home plastic bags for garbage and food storage not that I'm ready to give those up just yet myself.
All that aside, one very simple bag to make is to use an old t-shirt, remove the sleeves and enlarge the arm and neck holes to create 2 handles. Sew the bottom straight across, then on the inside, sew off a triangle at each corner to make a neat squared off bottom (not really necessary, but looks better). If you have a serger, this project is very quick, otherwise you'll want to zigzag or better yet, french the seams to make them sturdy. I like this particular type of bag because when you make something from new material you have to consider that the manufacturing and transporting of that also has environmental impact. Also, they're lightweight and take up little space for when you need several.
There are a number of tutorials on the Internet for making the crocheted bags from plastic bags, but I hesitate to invest the time in that because I know that a lot of the bags we get are biodegradable, and I wonder how long it will be before they disintegrate.
Last edited by Rose_P; 11-09-2012 at 08:18 PM.