BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Bags, and in particular, those used for grocery shopping are available in a number of different varieties. Most of these bags are known to the public and generally consist of a body portion adapted to hold the goods to be carried, an opening or mouth so that the body portion can be accessed and a carrying means typically extending above the mouth. The materials used in the construction of these bags are generally plastic or cardboard for obvious cost and strength requirements.

Supermarkets and convenience stores often supply customers with plastic bags which are stored in various types of plastic bag racks. Once a bag has been removed from the rack, it is opened and groceries and other goods are placed inside.

Opening the mouth of the bag is often quite difficult, as the bags have a tendency to stick to one another. To alleviate this problem, the sales assistant will perhaps grip the handle or other carrying means and shake the bag in an attempt to force air inside the body of the bag so as to open the mouth. This is quite time consuming and often provides an unfavourable noise due to the shaking of the plastic bag. Racks that keep plastic bags open by extending the mouth into a shape that allows for easy access to the body portion are known, however, this still requires the sales assistant to open the bag themselves prior to placing it onto the rack.

The adverse environmental impact of single use relatively flimsy plastic shopping bags as commonly supplied by most Western supermarkets and shops is well known. Such bags are used in large quantities and consumers in generally pay little attention to the safe disposal of the bag. The resulting pollution that occurs has become a major concern for many governments and methods of reducing the impact of the shopping bag are keenly sought after.

One possible solution to the issue is thought to be the adoption of reusable bags that will be purchased at a cost to the consumer. As the consumer has made an investment in such bags, the expectation is that such products will be carefully looked after and maintained.

The difficulty to date has been to provide reusable shopping bags, which may be required in some quantity, in a manner that is practical for'users.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome at least some of the aforementioned problems or to provide the public with a useful alternative. The invention therefore relates to a bag including fastening means adapted to engage the fastening means of a second bag, and a container for a plurality of coupled bags.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore in one form of the invention there is proposed a reusable shopping bag including: a body portion adapted to hold goods and a carrying means attached to the body portion; a loop fastening means located on said body portion; and at least one hook fastening means located on said carrying means said hook fastening means adapted to engage a loop fastening means located on a second shopping bag.

The shopping bag of the present invention thus includes strategically positioned fastening means that enable a plurality of such bags to be coupled together and subsequently stored in a storage container. The proposed arrangement further enables a user to effectively control the amount of bags they wish to take from storage in that when a first bag is pulled out, the coupled bags follow in the same path, one after the other until the required amount of bags has been retrieved.

Preferably said body portion is tubular and includes an enclosed end and an open end said open end defining a mouth of said bag.

Preferably said hook and loop fastening means are attached at upper and lower edges of said bag respectively.

Preferably said loop fastening means is located at the base of said body portion and is of a size to engage two of said hook fastening means of a second reusable shopping bag.

In a particularly preferred form of the invention, the hook and loop fastening means are located respectively at opposing ends of a plurality of bags. Thus, the hook fastening means located at an upper end of a first bag connects to the loop fastening means at the lower end of a second bag. In turn, the second bag is

connected by hook fastening means at its end to loop fastening means on a lower end of a third bag. In such a manner a'train'of bags formed by serial connection in this way may be stored in a container for subsequent retrieval one at a time, thereby providing a shopper with a convenient means of accessing bags for use.

Preferably said fastening means enables a plurality of said bags to be attached in a train configuration.

Preferably said bags may be stored in a storage means, for example a purse, whereby each bag is coupled together and stacked one on top of the other in a collapsed state.

Preferably, said storage means is a cylindrical container including a tapered neck and a circular opening of a diameter less than that of the base of the container.

This shape promotes control when retrieving a bag from the container in that the conical neck provides a pressure on bags within.

Preferably said bags are adapted to be withdrawn from said purse one bag at a time.

Preferably, said body portion and carrying means are made of plastic or fabric. Any material capable of holding relatively heavy goods without rupturing is sufficient for these purposes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several implementations of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the advantages and principles of the invention.

In the drawings: Figure 1 is a perspective view illustrating a reusable shopping bag in accordance with the present invention; Figure 2 is an enlarged perspective view of the method of engagement of one shopping bag with another shopping bag; Figure 3 is a perspective view illustrating a bag storage container; Figure 4 is a perspective view illustrating a train of bags being retrieved from the bag storage container of Figure 3; and

Figure 5 is a perspective view illustrating an alternate storage container.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The following detailed description of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings. Although the description includes exemplary embodiments, other embodiments are possible, and changes may be made to the embodiments described without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings and the following description to refer to the same and like parts.

The present invention discloses a shopping bag 10 that includes strategically located hook and loop fastening members 12,14 and 16 such that a plurality of such bags 10 may be coupled together to form a train 18 of shopping bags. The train of bags is subsequently collapsed and stored into a correspondingly shaped storage container 20 so that when a pre-determined number of bags 10 is desired, one would simply pull on the carrying means 22 and 24 of the uppermost bag 10 and the train 18 of bags will follow one by one until the desired number of bags have been retrieved. The present invention provides an alternative to the use of plastic bags in that the bags 10 are manufactured to be reusable, whilst still maintaining the practicality and effectiveness of current systems of bag storage and retrieval. The hook and loop fastening members are the type sold under the trade name"Velcro".

Figure 1 illustrates the bag 10 of the present invention which includes a hollow body portion 26 sealed at the lower end to hold goods placed inside and open at the upper end thereby defining a mouth portion 28, and a carrying means which in this case are two opposed identical arcs 22 and 24 adapted to be gripped by a user when handling the bag 10. Centrally located at the uppermost outer edge of each arc 22 and 24 are well known hook fastening members 12 and 14 respectively, whilst centrally located at the lowermost outer edge of body 26 is a loop fastening member 16. It is to be understood that loop fastening member 16 is of a surface area able to accommodate two hook fastening members attached thereto.

It should be understood that hollow body portion 26 and carrying means 22 and 24 of the bag 10 may vary in appearance without affecting the functionality of the invention. For example, arcs 22 and 24 could well be solid plastic handles while body portion 26 could very well be shaped in a circular configuration. Preferably, body portion 26 and carrying means 22 and 24 are made of a material that is

environmentally friendly, however, any type of plastic or fabric that is capable of holding relatively heavy goods without rupturing will suffice. Since the bag 10 is designed to be re-usable, a fabric that is long lasting would be preferable.

Construction of the bag 10 is quite simple and economical. Figure 1 illustrates that body portion 26 and carrying means 22 and 24 are actually made from the same single piece of fabric. Hook and tape fastening members 12,14 and 16 may simply be sewn onto the fabric. This is one way of constructing the bag 10 when using fabric as a material, however, there are numerous other possible methods of construction and once again, the invention should not be limited to only this method. For example, if body portion 26 and carrying means 22 and 24 were made of plastic then obviously alternate connection means would need to be employed.

As previously mentioned, it is desired for a plurality of such bags to be coupled together and Figure 2 illustrates the connection of the bag 10 of Figure 1 to a second identical bag 30. It can be seen that both of the hook fastening members 32 and 34 located on carrying means 36 and 38 of the second bag 30 respectively, are attached to the loop fastening member 16 of the first bag 10.

When a plurality of bags have been attached in this manner, they may then be stored into a container 20 which is illustrated in Figure 3. The container 20 consists of a lower region 40 which is substantially cylindrical until it tapers inwards at the neck region 42 to a circular cross-sectional opening 44 of a diameter substantially less than that of the base 46. There is also included a zipper 48 which extends from the opening 44 down to approximately 1/4 of the height of the container from the base 46. The zipper 48 is adapted to be opened when placing the bags therein and closed when the container is full of bags in normal use. The container 20 further includes a carrying means 50 which extends from the side of the container 20.

Referring to Figures 3 and 4, it should now be apparent that when a person withdraws the uppermost bag 10 from within the container 20, that a train 18 of bags that are coupled together by way of the described fastening means follow one after the other in the same path. The inwardly tapered neck region 42 provides a pressure on the bags within that is greater than the pressure applied at the lower region 40 of the container 20. This means that when a person (not shown) grasps the carrying means 22 and 24 of the uppermost bag that extends beyond opening 44, and pulls the train of coupled bags out of the container 20, the pressure applied on the bags in the neck region 42 ensures two things. Firstly, that during the process of withdrawal

the train 18 of bags do not exit the container 20 in an uncontrolled manner, and secondly that the carrying means 52 and 54 of the next bag 56 in the train will be exposed for the next user to take. For example, if a person wishes to withdraw two bags 10 and 30 from the container, the pressure applied on the bags at the neck region 42 allows him or her to controllably withdraw two bags and disconnect the hook and loop fastening means between the second 30 and third 56 bags with a minimum of care. The carrying means 52 and 54 of the third bag then protrudes just beyond the opening 44 for the next user to grasp.

An alternate storage container 58 is proposed in Figure 5 that includes a cylindrical body 60 with a zipper 62 extending along the entire height of the container 58. The container 58 works in substantially the same manner as the container 20 illustrated in Figure 3 in that pressure is applied to the bags within by the surrounding cylindrical body 60. The amount of control in this container 58 is governed by the extent to which the zipper 62 is opened. The container 58 also includes carrying means 64 in the form of a flexible handle.

The containers 20 and 58 as proposed above may also be made of any suitable fabric that is capable of storing a required amount of bags. Furthermore the shapes of the containers need not be limited to those described herein.

It should now be apparent that once a customer of a shopping centre or the like has purchased a bag 10, they are now in a position to reuse that bag 10. The containers 20 and 58 as described above serve to store a plurality of bags which is useful in situations such as those found in supermarkets where large numbers of bags are required. They not only protect them for their next use but also provide a quick and practical method for their withdrawal. This process is also environmentally friendly in that it does away with the need for plastic bags currently being used which are generally used once and then disposed of.

The present invention therefore provides a shopping bag 10 that is capable of being coupled to an identical shopping bag 30 through strategically located hook and loop fastening members 12,14 and 16. The coupled shopping bag 30 may then be coupled to yet another identical shopping bag 56, and so on, thereby creating a train 18 of shopping bags. In the embodiment described the shopping bags that are used to form the train are identical. However, there is nothing that would prevent the use of dissimilar shaped or sized bags from being used to form a train.

Furthermore, the present invention proposes various containers 20 and 58 for the storage and practical retrieval of the train of bags so that a pre-determined number of bags may be withdrawn from the containers at any one time such that when the desired number of bags are retrieved and disconnected from the train, the carrying means of the next bag will be exposed for the next user to take. The containers 20 and 58 further provide an element of control to the retrieval process so that bags are withdrawn one by one.

Further advantages and improvements may very well be made to the present invention without deviating from its scope. Although the invention has been shown and described in what is conceived to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is recognized that departures may be made therefrom within the scope and spirit of the invention, which is not to be limited to the details disclosed herein but is to be accorded the full scope of the claims so as to embrace any and all equivalent devices and apparatus.