Are Tote Bags Really Good for the Environment?

In my Paper I will be talking about this piece of trash I found very interesting to observe and take notes. The object is a medium size tote like bag with dents and rips from the front part of the object to the sides of the object. This object has one hole in the left bottom area of it and to the far back left it's ripped apart as well as the far right corner. The object is all black, shades of jet black as well in the middle of the bag where it spells the letters M,C,M. There is what looks like some type of Greek art symbol under the letters MCM. It has these pair of what looks like leaves but not what a typical leaf looks like shape, there spread out in both directions like similar to wings. There is this object in the middle between the wing shaped leaves , it's similar to a ring. Under the ring and leave like wing there is almost similar M shaped structure supporting the whole structure. This object also has a draw string hanging from one left hole looping to the other right hole.

The material from the object looks like black cardboard but a very luxury, expensive type. The object I am describing is a shopping bag. This specific shopping bag holds items worth thousands, so it wouldn't be considered a regular shopping bag where we just throw away. These type of luxury shopping bags are made from fabrics including silk, cotton, and linen etc. These type of fabrics make those buying the product with these bags have such value rather than it just being a regular bag you get to hold your items then throw away Based off my empirical data the bag seems to be able to be reused, and is of a higher quality make or design than any other shopping bag that I have seen, For example are made from a silkworm,it forms a cocoon and is broken filaments processed into yarn (www.Greenopedia.com). The shopping bag is made of canvas, natural fibre like a thick paper bag. This bag is often used again after buying your luxury item, it is used as a bag you use to put anything in, gym clothes, a pair of sneakers, anything.

Anthropologically looking at the production of shopping bags and how they are now more than just a shopping bag now companies such as Bloomingdale's now actually made their typical shopping bag an actual bag which resembles the iconic shopping. It has a leather- latex material and leather handles, as well as the brand Balenciaga, they have shopping bags starting at $1,ooo. This shopping bag's brand is called MCM (Michael Cromer Munchen). It was named after the creator of the designer. MCM was established originally in Munich, Germany 1976 (www.theguardian.com). However, the original creator was investigated for tax evasion. Mcm was bought by Swiss investment. Sung-Joo Kim owned the license for MCM and later the brand name was changed to Mode Creation Munich (Businessoffashion.com).

Societies are usually understood as even more enmeshed within cultural media than ourselves. Rather our stance is one that takes society to be always a cultural project in which we come to be ourselves in our humanity through the medium of things. This fear, at least in its earlier Marxist form, was not, however, a fear of material objects per se but of the commodity as vehicle for capitalist dominance, and this raises a key issue as to whether and when societies might be able to resist this particular form of object domination. ( A Black sweet drink from Trinidad, Daniel Miller). In America people became so entangled and brainwashed into fashion that these fashion brands how so much control over people's lives, some people would starve just to wear the latest fashion.This also relates to how the wealthy business owners are able to keep power.

Referring back to the company Bloomingdales, they seen their Big Brown Bag was growing more out of a shopping bag into an actually stylish everyday wear bag that they decided to turn it into an actual bag. He shows us how people make meaning for themselves under circumstances they do not control, how the emergence of new forms of commerce, new patterns of migration, and new systems of social control lead people to fashion new survival strategies and create their own new forms of social identity, social alliance, and social affiliation (The grounded transnationalism of Robert Alvarez, George Lipsitz). I personally feel as though big brand companies should come to be more holistic in terms of their thinking for their brand or product and more importantly the consumers. Stop robbing people of their money, I say this because these companies are exploiting people to buy their goods by any means necessary. It could be a clothing that kills as long as its selling off the selves they could care less about the repercussions. I believe companies should care for the customers as well and have more meaningful product rather than a very expensive product that does little to nothing for the consumer but break their pockets.

The shopping bag is a very sourceful item it is reusable that is the best advantage it has. The bag I analyzed was most likely used to store personal things in the bag. As in the picture shown below the bag has items in them while still identified as garbage. Personally when I go to luxury store nad make big purchases and I get a sense of pride to be walking around with a luxury shopping bag even when it has nothing pertaining to that brand or just have dirty socks or your next meal in the bag i've noticed people still tend to stare just because of the logo embedded on the shopping bag. I am saying all of this to generalization the broad perspective of merchandise and how it affects society.

As I further analyzed the trash I noticed the additional trash in the shopping bag so it was trash inside of trash. The shopping bag became non reusable and useless once it became damaged and ripped slightly apart. The additional items in the now trash shopping bag was an old tote lid with dirty stains on it and an surgical purple glove over the top right corner of the tote lid. It's next to an actual garbage can so I make under the assumption that this is actual trash. There were empty soda and water bottles in the shopping bag along with a black shoe box now this shoe box was slightly noticeable to be considered garbage it had a few rips of the paper from the shoe box on both sides. I also get rid of useless shopping bags as soon as I see a hole or rip because I think of fit as pointless to have lying around in my house if it's destroyed, it it now considered trash at that point.

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