I like the uniqueness of these! If somebody does have a surplus of plastic bags, most stores have a bin that takes them to be recycled. We always grab a bunch to use for our garage sales as we use canvas bags for shopping.
I'm sure you could use crumpled paper too to give it a nice effect. Or per the other https://www.craftercraze.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=574&p you can use rice, but that could get expensive lol