If you’ve been reading for a while you probably know we hate waste. Most of the time, minimizing waste is pretty unglamorous, but every once in a while our mission to reduce waste takes us to some very cool places. I look after Clover’s grocery marketplaces (including our Assembly Row grocery store). A few months ago I noticed that the marketplaces were going through a lot of our paper bags. They’re compostable, which is great.

But I think the best bag is one you can use over and over again.

I started thinking about a beautiful reusable bag, and talked to Kiernan and Lucia about how to make it happen. Our priorities, in this order: they needed to be strong and sturdy, they needed to be beautiful, and they probably needed to have a veggie on them (this is Clover, after all).

I called up our pal Ana Inciardi, a printmaker in Portland, Maine. You may have met her when she came to ROW a while back to do a print workshop. She carved a cabbage print that we loved, and reminded us of the cabbage we shred for the pickled veggies on our chickpea fritter sandwich.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted these bags to be made by BAGGU. They make really strong bags out of recycled ripstop nylon – I’ve had one for five years and it’s good as new.

We picked our favorite color swatches (green and pink) only to find out they were just out of stock. We found new swatches that we liked even more than the first ones (white and blue). I like how the cabbage almost looks like planet Earth.

These bags hold 50 pounds of anything you can put in them – that’s suitcase-levels of cargo!

We are rolling these out at all Clover locations (you may have spotted them in Cambridge locations already, they’re coming soon to the rest.)

And if you’re a meal box subscriber, keep an eye out! You might have a chance to have these delivered along with your next box order.

Are you far away from Boston but want to show your Clover pride? Ana has a few available on her website available to ship.