Saving the planet (One trendy bag at a time)

There's no question about it. The plastic bag is so over.

For evidence, consider the events of last week, when hundreds of people in and around New York raced to Whole Foods stores in hopes of purchasing one of Anya Hindmarch's $15 "I'm not a plastic bag" cotton totes. The carrier is intended as a reusable alternative to grocery store plastic bags and, apparently, as a fashion statement. It wasn't the first time the bags sparked pandemonium. Last month in Taiwan, 30 people were injured when the bags went on sale, causing a stampede.

Hindmarch's cheeky totes are presumably so coveted because she also designs handbags that cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. But she's not the only designer heeding the call for eco-friendly sacks. Now that the ugly truth about plastic bags is known (Americans use 84 billion annually; it takes 1,000 years for one plastic bag to decompose in a landfill), the demand for stylish, reusable bags is only going to grow.

What's more, in Boston they could soon be our only option. In April, City Councilor Robert Consalvo proposed that Boston put a ban on non-biodegradable plastic bags. He'd been looking for a solution to the city's plastic bag clean-up problem when San Francisco passed a ban on the bags earlier this year.

"I hate litter, and these bags are the biggest culprit," he says. If the proposal goes into effect, supermarkets, pharmacies, and other big retailers will have to find biodegradable or compostable substitutes. A hearing is set for later this summer.

It's unlikely another designer will be able to capitalize so deftly on consumers' nascent eco-sensitivity while encouraging them to buy more things, as Hindmarch has. But other big names are putting their spin on the tote, some with winking messages of their own.

The recently released Marc by Marc Jacobs canvas tote pokes fun at designers' penchant for plastering their names on their products, and, just maybe, at the consumers who eat it up. The bag reads: "Jacobs by Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs in collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs." For only $12, they're sturdy and hold quite a bit. "It's so much nicer than carrying a plain old shopping bag," says Mary Nobile-King, general manager of the Marc Jacobs store in Boston.

At Motley in the South End, owner Doug Palardy carries several totes by Jack Spade, a label known for making utilitarian bags for men. But the most popular is a reversible tote with the word "trash" written vertically up the side. Reverse it, and the bag is covered with images of the very trash people tend to schlep around. At $225, the sly little message (consumerist? anti-consumerist? both?) doesn't come cheap. No matter. "The wording on that one has made it an easy sell," Palardy says.

At Luna Boston, $30 totes by Juice Planning come in a variety of busy patterns, which store manager Sarah Crabb says is really helpful. ". . . The bags can take a lot of abuse, and you'd never tell that they were dirty," she says. She also recommends bags by Matt & Nat, a vegan line out of Montreal made with a synthetic material that looks just like leather and retails between $100 and $200.

High-end retailers are getting a handle on totes, too, though whether they're meant to be tossed into your trunk with the groceries would depend, presumably, on your bank account. Barneys carries a sturdy, over-the-shoulder canvas boat tote on their private label, BNY, for $395. And at Gretta Luxe in Wellesley, manager Katie Faessler likes the Hadley Pollet tote ($385) or the Balenciaga courier bag ($1,385). But she's not convinced they're right for the market. "It could be used as your work bag," she says, "and if you happened to stop at Whole Foods on your way home, there's enough room for some smaller essentials inside."

And then, of course, there are the grocery-store options, which Consalvo prefers. Whole Foods sells an organic cotton tote for 99 cents, as do some other grocers.

"We pick up canvas totes at Shaw's for 99 cents," he says. "They work one hundred times better than plastic. They hold more, and they don't cut the circulation off in your fingers."