Landfills are cluttered with millions of them — they’re plastic, flimsy and used for mere minutes before they are tossed in the trash can. But, by replacing these grocery sacks with bags meant to be reused, consumers could minimize this pile of non-biodegradable materials — and be stylish while doing so.

Some grocery stores like Trader Joe’s, a national chain, sell colorful canvas or heavy-duty plastic bags that can be used for several shopping trips for a few dollars. .

And since January, Emily Sugihara, a 2005 graduate of Parsons: The New School For Design, has been working to make reusable shopping bags into a fashion staple.

The California company, Baggu, which she founded with her mother, sells nylon bags meant to replace plastic and paper grocery bags — and they come in eight different colors.

Sugihara said she had the idea when she searched for bags for her mother, Joan, to use and came up short.

“I had gotten a reusable bag from Sweden as a gift a few years ago,” she said. “I loved using it. My mom … also wanted to start using a reusable bags. Online, the same bag I had was $30.”

She said she then looked for cheaper reusable bags, but they were “junky and weren’t cool.”

So, she bought fabric and began to create a prototype — intending at first, she said, to make bags for her mother’s use only.

But when she and her mother developed a bag they liked, they worked with a manufacturer to have the bags mass produced.

“There didn’t seem to be a well-priced, stylish solution out there,” she said.

Now, Sugihara works full time at Baggu. And since an August article published in Teen Vogue magazine about the company, she said she and her mother have been “up to their eyeballs” in work.

She said there have been about 3,000 bag orders in the first two months of the online store, and most customers purchase them in packs of three or six. According to the Web site, each bag holds 25 pounds and costs $8.

EnviroSax is a company with a similar vision, according to its Web site. Featured by Oprah and Forbes publications, EnviroSax manufactures patterned bags made from various materials.

One line of reusable bags on the Web site is made from bamboo, linen and hemp. Though their most basic line of bags runs from $7.95 each, the bamboo bags are $24.95.

But any sturdy tote bag can instantly become a shopping bag — stores like Old Navy and Target sell canvas bags in the $10- to $15-range.

Ryan Powell, the education and outreach coordinator for the University’s waste reduction and recycling office, agreed it is best to use cloth grocery bags.

“One of the questions that any recycling advocator always gets is, ‘is paper or plastic better?’ and the answer is neither is better,” Powell, a graduate student in economics, said.

But, if plastic bags must be used, Powell said it’s best to use them more than once. He said his office has passed out drawstring bags with holes in the bottoms so students can store plastic grocery bags for further use.

And, while stores like Food Lion and Harris Teeter have plastic bag recycling receptacles, Powell questioned the worth of doing so.

He said the energy used to break the bags down could be more than the energy used to make the bags.

“If there’s one good thing about plastic grocery bags, it’s that they are produced with very little material and very little energy,” he said.