Bag Podz

WASILLA-One local woman has a solution to the bans on single use plastic bags passed by the city Council’s of Palmer and Wasilla. Retired schoolteacher Savanah Hargraves is now moving toward making Bag Podz more available for shoppers around the state.

“I was driving down Bogard and in front of me blew a plastic bag and I thought ‘if I need an omen, that’s it right there,’” Hargraves said. ’You see people going out of a grocery store and I want to tap them on the shoulder and say, ‘I have a better way’”

Bag Podz come in four colors and two sizes, the 5- or 10-pack. Five bags fit in the small pod and can be clipped to a shopping cart. They hold 50 lbs of groceries and are machine washable. The frayed seam allows the widely set handles to hold a full bag of groceries without breaking out the bottom. They can be pulled out one at a time through the side pocket, used, washed, dried, scrunched up and fit back into the small 8-inch by 3.5-inch pod. The individual bags as well as the pod are made out of ripstop nylon. July 1 Wasilla initiates its bag ban. Palmer’s ban goes into effect January 1 of 2019.

“What I have is the perfect option for people who are making that change with or without the ban,” Hargraves said.

Hargraves found them online last winter and has since distributed them to friends, family, and local businesses. All About Herbs, Alaska Midnight Scents, Fireside Books and the Cobb St. Market all carry the Bag Podz. Hargraves said that she used them herself and after three different shoppers had asked her about them in line, she decided to see about becoming a distributor. She is now the sole distributor for the state of Alaska and in discussions with Carrs and Fred Meyer officials as the bans approach in hopes of getting the bag podz in big box stores.

“If you travel to the villages, they struggle with this plastic bag use so badly,” Hargraves said. “You can look out the airplane and I think they blow in from the dump. It looks like snow but it’s not, it’s plastic bags.”

Hargraves lists a myriad of uses for the Bag Podz. Hargraves and her husband taught around the state and have chosen to retire in the Mat-Su. Her son, who works in the Anchorage School district and praises their ease of use for school supplies and Costco trips, is able to fit all of the groceries for a big family in the bags that came out of the small pod, she said.

Public comments at the Palmer City Council were overwhelmingly in support of the ban, which passed 4 to 1 on May 22. Fines are included with the second and third instances of single use bags, but Hargraves intends to help consumers fit all their goods into the bags that come out of one pod, helping to clean up the Valley and surrounding areas affected by the litter of plastic single-use bags, which have been attributed to animal death and emergency room visits for toddlers who have consumed them.

“All you have to do is drive down the highway and you’ll find the motivation,” Hargraves said.