How I Organize and Store Plastic Bags

Help! Plastic bags are taking over my kitchen cupboard! You don't believe me? Wait until I show you, you'll be screaming like me! ( Did you know that some people think that we Argentinians tend to exaggerate everything? I don't know where all these stereotypes are coming from! ;o)

WARNING!: what I'm about to show you might shock you. I'm talking about the inside of my pantry (technically it's a broom cupboard - but I don't keep any brooms in there). Please don't judge me for the state of it. I'm slowly organizing every inch of our home and it's working! The systems I'm putting in place are being maintained without problems. I think I might have mastered the process to do it.Only time will tell!

This broom cupboard pantry has five deep shelves. They all need organizing but in order to succeed and not feel totally overwhelmed by the task ahead I decided to tackle only one of them: the one spilling housing the plastic bags.

Would you like a close-up? Are you sure?! Ok, go on! What a lovely mess!

 Ugh! Let's start from the beginning: everything out please!

I've identified four categories of bags in that mess: 

• Supermarket bags (medium size)
• "Other shops" bags 
• Tiny bags (I keep them to put difficult waste stuff in the rubbish bin)
• Charity bags (we receive at least a couple of these bags per week through our door, if we filled them all with clothes we would be going around naked...)

I also found a few of those washing machine capsules containers that I kept because I thought they could be re-used at some point. Maybe for this project? Wink-wink. See where I'm going here?

I folded all the bags and put each category in one of those clear plastic containers (exept for the "other shops bags" that I kept in one of the bags itself).

With contents looking so similar, some labelling was in order. I searched for some ready made ones on Pinterest (I even created a board only for labels that you can see here). I've printed out some pretty free ones that I've found in this website.

 An now, time for everyone's favourite: the before and after, ladies and gents!

It's looking a lot better, isn't it? If you are wondering about the white bin, it's actually for brown paper. This is the only kind of paper that the council doesn't collect in our area so we take it to a recycling point ourselves every so often. The paper was also in need of a place to live so this bin that keeps it tidy was perfect for the job. The sellotape? That's the one I use for covering the holes in the charity bags. I use these big bags as bin liners and I don't want anything dripping out into my gorgeous bin.

I love re-using stuff whenever I can. More re-using at home = less stuff going to landfill. And as for benefits on a more personal level: I feel good for doing my little bit for the environment and for the economy of our home!

Do you re-use any bags or containers? If so, please let me know by commenting in here. Go on! Don't be shy! I'm always looking for new ideas and I love knowing that there is someone out there reading all my nonsense!

Gaby x


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