In recent months I have noticed that the increasing profile of the campaign to rid the environment of plastic supermarket bags has had a noticeable effect around the city.

There are green bags everywhere.

And they haven�t even introduced a charge for the regular plastic bags yet � something which continues to be contemplated aloud periodically by everyone from Greenpeace to the federal government, and those two organisations are definitely at opposite ends of the spectrum on, well, everything.

So, why then, is everyone who has survived with an unhealthy addiction to free plastic shopping bags for so many years suddenly moving to bright green reusable bags that cost anything from $1 to $2.50 depending on the supermarket?

The answer is easy � they are great bags. They may in fact be magical. Much bigger and sturdier than they look. Proverbial bottomless pits.

Also no plastic bag handles designed to cut off all circulation in your fingers within seconds of picking them up.

The other day, for example, I loaded up a bright green bag that cost me $1.35 and appears not much bigger than a standard plastic grocery bag with a 2 ltr bottle of diet coke, 2 bottles of wine, 2 rolls of kitchen towels, 3 packets of kitchen sponges, a roll of plastic wrap, a roll of tin foil, three packets of freezer bags, a small block of chocolate, a packet or salami, a block of cheese, two large bread rolls and a lettuce. And while a bit heavy the bag did not strain at all and probably had room to spare. Also, it didn�t cut my fingers to shreds when carrying it home.

Smurfette once bought two of the bags with her on a weekend away and proceeded to remove from them half her university library. And at the end of the weekend all the books, half a living room full, went neatly back into the bags. It was like magic. We didn�t quite believe it.

I�m not yet fully in the habit of remembering to take the bag down to the store with me when I go to pick up the random bits of groceries that I inevitably wind up at the store for three times a day on weekends and every second day during the week. But because of the moving and the apparently bottomless nature of the bags, I�m just buying a new one every time I forget to take the pre-purchased ones with me. Betty and I already have a couple sitting on the floor in the kitchen serving as our moving care packages � stocked with cleaning products and kitchen necessities so that we don�t have to buy them in the middle of the actual moving. (And, just to confirm, that doesn�t mean that we�re spectacularly organised Martha Stewart types, just that we had a stack of kitty money left over and couldn�t justify spending it all on beer. Only some of it got spent on beer.)

Clearly we�re not the only ones to discover the value of the bottomless pit bags. You can�t go a block in the city without seeing at least one little green beacon of practicality and environmental consciousness being toted around, regardless of it�s inability to match any outfit.

Great bags.

I�ll probably pick up another one tonight when I stop by the store to conjure up something for dinner.