SF Weekly Votes RainaBags as Best Alternative to the Plastic Grocery Sack
May 20, 2009
We don’t need to lecture our eco-conscious readers on the importance of quitting your grocery sack habit. The city has already banned plastic ones, and paper ones are hardly any better for the Earth. Yet for those who’d like to make an aesthetic statement as well as a green one, try a RainaBag, the high-end creation of Financial District accountant and bag designer Raina Yee. Inspired by an eco-minded boyfriend to expand her former purse business, Yee started the company last year, processing bamboo fabric into baby-soft yet sturdy bags at a workshop in India (whose employees have health care benefits and earn a legal wage, she adds). The bags are pesticide-free and colored with vegetable dye, and are currently under review for organic certification. At $79 a pop, a RainaBag ain’t no Safeway sack, but that’s exactly the point.
Article written by Lauren Smiley
