What is a Tree Hugger doing with plastic grocery bags? You should shop with reusable bags, Stacy, you say.

Oh, but I do, I do! I answer earnestly. Well, sometimes, not always.

The truth is, I use those plastic grocery bags to line the trash cans in the bathrooms and kitchen. My question to the naysayers is, why prohibit plastic grocery bags and then turn around and allow the sale of plastic garbage bags? I suppose I should compost my garbage, but what do I do with my trash? Do I burn it? That poses a different sort of threat to the environment. Ah – the woes of a modern country girl.

Anyway, most of the time I take my lovely Thirty-One totes to the grocery store and carry my stuff home in those. But occasionally, I just use the plastic bags so that I have a supply of trash bags.

But how to store those bags – they take up so much room?

Plastic Bag Keeper to the rescue – and it recycles things you have around the house!

You will need:

a paper towel tube (I know, I know – Why are you using paper towels, Stacy? you ask. Honestly, I don’t. But the man of the house insists they are necessary in his workshop, and how can I deny him?)
leftover wall paper or wrapping paper
about 12″ of ribbon
scissors
glue
sponge or sponge brush
paper clips or clothespins

• Cut your paper about 6 1/2 inches wide by 12 inches long.
• Spread glue on the paper using a sponge or sponge brush.
• Carefully wrap the paper around the tube, smoothing wrinkles or bubbles as you go around.
• Leave about a half inch of paper to extend past the tube.

• Cut the ends of the paper.
• Fold the ends of the paper over the ends of the tube, adding more glue if necessary.

• Cut a length of ribbon about 13″ long.
• Glue ribbon over the seam.
• Secure with clothespins or paper clips until dry.

Stuff with all those dastardly plastic bags – you can probably shove twenty bags in there. It takes up so little space under the sink, too!