Things You'll Need:
- Plastic grocery bags - all the ones you've collected
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Step 1
Firstly, save your plastic grocery bags for future shopping trips. Reduce reuse recycle. Now, do not become a "bag person" and walk into the store with a ton of them. Rather, take a canvas tote and fill that with your folded or twisted plastic grocery bags.
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Step 2
Nowadays, many supermarket chains are offering $0.02 for each plastic grocery bag you return to the store. Now, that's a good thing!
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Step 3
Use your plastic grocery bags as your office wastebasket liner. We usually just throw non-food trash in there, so when it is full, it can be dumped in the main garbage and reused several times, until you feel it is time to put it in the recycle bin.
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Step 4
Use it to line your bathroom wastebaskets. Now, bathroom garbage just has to go out, bag and all. This is a substitute to purchasing small wastebasket liners, even though those may be more biodegradable than the plastic grocery bags.
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Step 5
Use them to line a small diaper pail. Again, this one goes out with the garbage.
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Step 6
If you have an automatic cat litter box, such as a LitterMaid, where the waste is swept into a disposable receptacle, consider lining the receptacle! Just line the unused receptacle with a plastic grocery bag. Instead of throwing out that semi-expensive receptacle, just throw out the liner! You have now extended the life of your litter box receptacles.
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Step 7
Reuse your plastic grocery bags for the freezer. Purchase wax or parchment paper and wrap your meats or other food in the paper. Wash your plastic grocery bag, and then place the food in it. It will act as a barrier between your food and the burning freeze of the cold temperature. I recommend using the paper to keep it away from your frozen food. You know, many frozen foods come in boxes with plastic inserts that feel just like these!
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Step 8
If you're traveling, consider placing your shoes in a plastic grocery bag before you put them in your suitcase.
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Step 9
Likewise, you can place important files in one, when you have to transport them from one location to another, especially in the rain. Sometimes we may not want to put the files in our other totes.
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Step 10
Here's a humorous one -- use your plastic grocery bags to make an instant tie-down rope for your car. Now, do not use it with extra heavy items, but it is durable enough to keep things in place. How?
Take two of them and take one handle of the first bag and put it through a handle of the second bag. Loop the first bag over the handle of the second bag and pull it through it's own handle. This makes a strong tie.
Next, gather the rest of one bag and loop it into a knot just below the other, unused handle.
Continue to loop bags and tie them up until you have the length that you need. Do this to make two ropes, and then twist the two "ropes" together. If it needs to be stronger, then make it three ropes.
Tie a knot at each end of your doubled or tripled rope. Use it to secure your items on the go!
Comments
MargaritaBobita said
on 12/6/2009 So many great uses for grocery bags. Thanks for sharing.
flowersinmylife said
on 12/6/2009 Great article on re-using plastic bags. 5* and a rec.
askapeach said
on 10/18/2009 Good tips, some I already do and some great new ones!
writinghigh said
on 10/12/2009 Re-using plastic grocery bags is a wonderful idea. Following the lead of this article will help save our environment. Very well written. 5*
evgnspaces said
on 9/24/2009 More good ways to use plastic grocery bags. It is hard to always remember cloth reusable ones so there is still plastic around the house.