I have been working at Urban Outfitters for some time and we do not use plastic bags for the clothes but we use what Urban Outfitters likes to call “reusable bags.” So since I work at Urban and have acquired a few of these bags I wanted to see if the bags are actually reusable and for how long. I went to the Urban Outfitters website to see if I can find something that talks about their bags. This is what they say, ” We are passionate about eliminating single-use items, especially those that pose a threat to the environment like plastic. Our Urban Outfitters stores use lightweight, fabric shopping bags that customers can reuse for many purposes beyond retail. Made of polypropylene fabric that does not tear, the bags can be washed and used for many years. We love seeing our customers using them for grocery shopping, a book bag or even an overnight tote!” After reading this I decided to take their advice and use the bag to do all of these things. If you’ve never shopped at Urban Outfitters than you wouldn’t know what the bags look like, but in my opinion they’re really cute and they come in different colors and sizes. Since I shop there alot I had all of the sizes and decided to use them for different things. The smallest bag I used to hold some clothes for a “overnight tote” like they suggested and it worked fine I couldn’t fit too much stuff inside because it was too small and it was a little awkward to carry because one of the straps had ripped off. I would’ve been better just using a purse or something. Then I used the big ones as grocery bags and it was terrible. I guess I put too many things in each bag, even though they were pretty light things, and it ripped as I was walking up to my dorm. Then I wanted to see if the bag was actually washable. It shrunk some after drying it and when I was stretching it back out the bag ripped. In the end I think the bags can only be used for really light things and they aren’t really durable. But on the bright side the bag is made of polypropylene which is a recyclable material and you can use it more than once if you wanted to. I appreciate Urban for at least trying to reduce their ecological footprint and attempting to make their bags reusable and recyclable. I now just reuse the same bag for putting in clothes that I just purchased, that way I am reusing the bag and not taking a new one every time. Im not sure if the production of these bags costs more for retail stores but I feel like if all retails stores decided to be a little more conscious about their impact on the environment like Urban Outfitters then there would be a significant impact on plastic in the world. Also Urban Outfitters has cute clothes so I definitely recommend shopping there.

This is a picture of their bags.