Store your plastic grocery bags in tiny little folded triangles

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#Organizing#garbage#great-ideas#plastic bags#storage
Photo courtesy of A Lil Bird Told Me

While I love that Seattle recently enacted a plastic bag ban, I also have always made heavy use of my plastic grocery bags — they’re the perfect size for our smaller garbage cans, and I loath the idea of purchasing little plastic bags to hold trash. Because of this, I’ve started hoarding my diminishing stash of grocery bags, and A Lil Bird Told Me has a brilliant way to keep those slippery plastic sacks perfectly stored. Head on over to get the full instructions.

About the Author: Ariel

@findyourafterglow

Author of three editions of the Offbeat Bride book and its sequel (From Shitshow To Afterglow, the ultimate offbeat breakup book) Ariel Meadow Stallings is the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire web properties. She lives in Seattle with her son. To read her latest work, follow @arielist.

Comments on Store your plastic grocery bags in tiny little folded triangles

  1. Oh, what!?! Folded, they will still fit in my bag dispenser, and I can get more in. Genius! Keep it going, OH. At this rate, my house will be 100% awesome by christmas.

  2. Perfect! Our collection has expanded beyond acceptable proportions (and they’re perfect for kitty and ferret litter clean-up). This would make it much more manageable.

  3. I don’t know what I’d do if there were a plastic grocery bag ban. o_o I use my plasties for everything.
    My method is to sort of roll them and shove them into a larger bag. We don’t tend to bring a LOT of bags in and we use them at a good clip, so I don’t get too overwhelmed. There’s a bag recycle bin by my grocery’s front door, so it’s not too hard to keep it under control.

    • My city just enacted a plastic bag ban (well, a fee if you want a plastic bag at the grocery store). While my environmentalist side says “yay!” my frugal side says “But, but, what will I use as garbage bags?” It’s causing a bit of controversy. I may have to start hoarding and triangling them like Ariel…

      • I definitely realize that not everyone reuses their plastic bags, so the end result is almost certainly a better world.
        But man.
        Does the ban extend to fast food joints, takeout restaurants and other retail shopping locations? A lot of those places hand out plastic bags with their goods, so that’s a good bathroom trashcan liner source! 🙂

        • In Toronto, it’s a full on bag ban as of Jan 1 – no store can provide a plastic bag with a purchase. Previous to the ban, it’s a fee for bags at an amount up to the retailer.

          I hear that grocery stores are still permitted to have bags that vegetables and fruits can be placed in, but that is it – fast food places have to adjust, and clothing stores have been switching to the “gift bag” style of bag for shopping.

          As for grocery bags, we make use of the bags we end up with from other goods: fruit/veggie bags, bread bags, milk bags – if it can contain garbage, it gets used

        • Our bag ban will be grocery stores only at this point, with exceptions made for produce bags / bags to put meat in.

          And I’m with you, Emma. I use ANY bag for trash – including bread, tortilla chips, anything!

  4. My mom always keeps a few plastic bags, neatly rolled up and tied with a twist-tie, in her purse. This sounds like a good counterpart for home storage — then you don’t need a twist-tie for every bag! 😀

  5. I recently noticed my boyfriend’s roommate just ties a knot in them. That’s a really fast way to make them more manageable. Mine are exploding out of the closet shelf I stuff them in…gotta do something about that.

  7. I use empty tissue boxes to hold my plastic bags. (The square ones.) You can stuff a lot in them, and the design I have in the bathroom for kitty litter is nice enough I just leave it in the open.

  8. I just wanted to report that I have been doing this all weekend with the bags we have accumulated (we’re in the middle of a remodeling project, so lots of trips to home improvement store…) And the ones I have been finding and emptying around the house. I am pretty sure my DH thinks I’m nutz, but so far it’s brilliant. I just have to get the huge overflowing bag o bags out of the garage and fold those down now!

  9. In my house we use one bag as the “holding bag” and stuff the rest inside. We usually end up giving them to food banks since our garbage can is way too big for grocery bags

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