Women Struggle with Reusable Shopping Bag Addictions, Says Expert

Throughout history women have been known to have shopping addictions. Some women are addicted to buying clothes, jewelry, shoes, household items, books and other things, but one of the more recent phenomena is the addiction some women have to reusable shopping bags.

One of the most public “confessions" to the behavior comes from Nora Ephron, the woman who wrote “When Harry Met Sally," and the author of “I Feel Back About My Neck." She wrote an essay titled “I Hate My Purse," which describes her love for a reusable shopping bag, which she began carrying as her everyday purse. In addition, Apartment Therapy, a popular website for women, recently wrote an article title “Weird Green Dilemma: Too Many Reusable Shopping Bags."

“The problem is," says one seller of the bags. “That people give away cheap reusable bags that have a logo plastered across the front of it, and a lot of women don't want to carry those types of bags. So instead, they look for their own bags that align with their lifestyle. And this quickly becomes an addiction because there are so many to choose from."

And it's true that reusable bags have changed a lot of the past couple of years. “Now women want the bags to match their outfits, or make a statement about their beliefs. You won't see a lot of people carrying bags that simply advertise a business." And the bags don't have to be beautiful. Ephron's new bag was purchased at the New York Metro, and according to her, it's made out of yellow and blue, and doesn't match anything, but it's durable and indestructible and she gets complements about it everywhere she goes. She goes so far in her essay to make fun of the latest trend of very expensive women's purses.

“I someone is going to be addicted to something, reusable shopping bags aren't a bad to love,"says the seller. “After all, they are inexpensive and if someone collects too many of them, they can use them as gift bags, to drop off donations to charities, and for storage units." Meanwhile, bloggers like Rachel Levy Lesser, who writes for the Huffington Post, publically confess their reusable shopping bag addiction. She claims that not only is she addicted to shopping bags, but she's not alone. She says women across country seek out good shopping bags and then hoard them. She may be right, according to all of the chatter on the blogosphere. And as far as addictions go, it's just not that bad.