I’m Ditching My Reusable Grocery Bags for This Practical Alternative

I might not have a lot of room in my New York City apartment, but I sure do have a lot of reusable bags. At this point, I have multiple shopping bags full of other bags in all sorts of sizes, and half of them aren’t even that great for grocery shopping. I started to think that it might be time to rethink my grocery transportation method — and, as it turns out, finding that better method may be as simple as looking in the laundry room.

If you’re looking for an easy way to carry your groceries around without having to remember to grab your reusable bags every time you leave the house, then this video by Australian content creator Jackie Ami might just have the answer. It shows how two laundry baskets can be a grocery game-changer.

In her video, Ami shows how she uses two tall rectangular laundry baskets instead of reusable grocery bags when grocery shopping. She has two mint green, flexible plastic baskets that she keeps in the trunk of her car. When she goes shopping, she pops them both inside of a shopping cart as she enters the store. 

Then, during checkout, the baskets (which have carrying handles on either side) get emptied so that she can pay for the items in them before being refilled again with those same groceries. After that, they’re easily lifted from the cart into the car. When the bins aren’t in use, they’re stacked and stashed in the trunk. I don’t even have a car, and I’m sold.

The video creator got her baskets from the Australian store Bunnings, but you can certainly use any laundry basket you have at home. If you’re in the market for something new, the IKEA TORKIS laundry basket, which Apartment Therapy contributor Pia Ceres uses as a surf go-bag all summer long, would work great for this hack. The $9.99, 9-gallon basket is 10.75 inches tall and 24.5 inches long, and you can choose from green, pale blue, pink, or yellow.