A friend of mine was telling me about a shopowner who is interested in producing reusable grocery bags made of hemp. I always associated hemp with marijuana, but apparently, they are two different plants (albeit in the same family). At any rate, his idea was to produce the bags for consumers, who could buy several at a time and then reuse them each time at the store. The bags would be designed to fit on those turnstile (sp?) type of things, where the baggers usually place the plastic bags. I thought this was a brilliant idea, as the bags would be made to fit the packing system already in grocery stores and possibly eliminate the need for plastic bags in some stores. Even better, hemp is apparently a hearty plant, that does not need a lot of pesticides to grow. So, instead of cutting down trees for paper bags, we could make bags out of an easily grown plant--i.e. a truly renewable resource. Perhaps we could also start using hemp towels instead of paper towels. The list of possibilities goes on and on. Plastic bags use up a lot of oil and clog our landfills. Now really is the time to make a simple adjustment to reducing the disposal of these bags to aid our energy conservation and to free up some of our landfill space.