Our family has recycled grocery plastic bags as trash bags for years. We use small plastic trash container about 12 inch diameter and 14 inches high. We have one in each bathroom, kitchen and laundry room. We simply insert the plastic grocery bag in. Once the trash is full, we just remove the bags to the large garbage can outside the house.
This way you empty the trash more frequent, keep the house more sanitary and odorless. For the last twenty years, we have never bought the commercial garbage bags. Of course you can also find other uses for the bags.
By pengteo from Seattle, WA
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Even better yet, recycle the plastic bags at the grocery store to be made into new things. "Recycling" them by using them as trash bags, it just throwing them into the landfill a few days later.
Better still, is to buy plastic garbage cans, that way when they get grimy you can wash them, in the meantime spray them down after each empty with some Lysol or homemade disinfectant.
We used to use the plastic shopping bags for our rubbish as well until recently when here in our state in Australia the government banned the supermarkets from issuing them. So now I have to buy plastic bags for my rubbish or just put the rubbish straight into the bin without plastic.
You can also reuse paper grocery bags - yes, some stores still use them. As lng as the garbage isn't wet, paper works as well or better, and is biodegradable besides.
Using paper and plastic grocery bags for garbage is very unsanitary and can also invite ants into your house!
I use the plastic grocery bags for mucky garbage, and like Peng, haven't used a purchased garbage bag for that for a long time. I use waste paper baskets without liners for places like my office where the garbage is just paper and cardboard.
I applaud michawnpita for being frugal and not using plastic at all, but I am afraid I am not as energetic.
I've been doing this for years as well (reusing grocery bags as trash bags) so I was really surprised so many people on the green movement front started pushing people to use canvas bags at the stores. Although, maybe they don't use garbage bags at all but if you do (and I do!) it's a great alternative use for them! I still do use tall kitchen bags but only in the kitchen I reuse grocery bags for every other room that has a can.
I am saving up my plastic grocery bags to make a "green" Grocery bag. I will cut the bags in strips, join them together and either knit or crochet a bag to take to the grocery store.
I don't have a pattern, but you can cut the plastic bags in strips and crochet them to make rugs and such. A lady in our church is going to teach us how.
You're still putting plastic bags into the landfills. Better yet save them take them back to the store and put in their recycle bin for just plastic bags. Every store has them as you enter the store.
Yes, the bags end up in the landfill in the end. But... So does the bags you purchase made for trash cans. So to all you "dont use, recycle" people... what do you all use for trash bags? Same difference.
Anyways, I love this post. We do this as well. Instead of a trash can in the kitchen, we just have two small hooks by the door leading outside. However, we live in an apartment and the kitchen is tiny,
Also, these bags have less material used than trash can liners ( even the small ones ) so it is in fact a better alternative... in my view anyways.
Reuse your paper bags as sewing patterns or to wrap up postal packages.
I used those grocery bags as trash bags for years. Now we use bigger ones to collect all the smaller ones - & we still take along our grocery bags to use for trash when we are on the boat. If any are left we then take them back to the store to recycle them.
Please reconsider using plastic bags at all. they NEVER go away! Go to YouTube and type in "plastic bags" and watch any of the videos. It will make you sick. Here's one www.youtube.com/
My daughter and son-in-law live in another state. I save my plastic grocery bags and use them as free packing material when I send them gifts.
As I was reading the posts on this subject, I had a few thoughts to share. I do use plastic grocery bags in small waste receptacles around the house. When I was a little girl, my mother always reused both the paper bags, in the 13 gal. kitchen trash can, and the small plastic ones in the small waste cans. It was just the normal way things were done at my house, so I thought that was how everyone did it!
I only get these bags when I need them and use reusable bags for groceries instead. I keep them in the back of the car along with one that is insulated for hot or cold itmes, depending on the circumstances. However, for the recycling bin we put by the road, the worker has asked that people use the large paper bags. He can just throw those on the truck, but he can not take the plastic ones. So when I need to replace those bags, I ask for 3 paper bags when my groceries are bagged.
Secondly, I noticed that someone talked about taking magazines to be recycled and used plastic for that. How about taking the magaziines to the beauty shop, the hospital, the doctor's office, the car repair shop or any other place where magazines are laid out for people to read while they are waiting. I get very few magazines, but I do take the ones I have to these places or give them to friends to read.
Lastly, I would like to mention about newspapers. I enjoy holding and reading the paper and doing some of the games in the newspaper, but when I thought about the expense and the need to recycle, I had a hard time to justify buying the paper. I offered to share the cost with a neighbor, who said I could just have their paper when they are done. They put them in our box when they are finished and I recycle them after I have read them. When they are away, I retrieve the paper from their box and read it. I save the papers until they return and take them over so they can read them if they choose, which they usually do.
Just a couple of other options! I hope it helps.
I crochet and knit items out of them. Sometimes I cut them into strips. Sometimes I take those strips and twist into as small as yarn. Depending on what I make. I go out to the recycle bin and grab up paper that is not shiney and shread it up and mix with water in a blender making pulp. Use it as clay or make more paper.
I know I have already posted. But I shop at albertson's stores. If you bring in your own plastic grocery bags to the check out with you, reuse them you get a nickel a bag off your bill.
I use grocery plastic bag as yarn to crochet anything on my mind. It is so rewarding when I see my crafts. Not only I help the environment but I can also bring my creativity out of it.
I use grocery plastic bag as yarn to crochet anything on my mind. It is so rewarding when I see my crafts. Not only I help the environment but I can also bring my creativity out of it.
There is another way to reuse the plastic bag. This movie was a competition to add value to the bag plastic. This clip won the competition, it is on youtube:www.youtube.com/
or just write on youtube "imagine it bag plastic"!
I do not line trash cans in the bathrooms or bedrooms. For my small garbage pail I use "Bio-bags" that can be composted. For my main 3-gallon trashcan I use bags made from recycled plastic. I take reusable bags when I grocery shop. When I end up with a stray plastic bag, I recycle it at the store that takes them. I'm old enough to remember when there was no darn plastic and we managed to survive.
I take the used bags to a recycling bin that just for bags. That way they arent added to landfills.
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