TikToker Elizabeth Varga (@elizabethgracevarga) posts a video of a simple hack anyone can do after a shopping haul. Instead of throwing out the plastic packaging your toilet paper and other goods come in, you can quickly turn it into a trash bag.
The scoop
Paper towels, toilet paper, bread, and other items often come in plastic packaging. Like those plastic grocery store bags, you can repurpose intact plastic packaging as a trash bag. "I can not remember the last time I paid for a small sized garbage bag," wrote the original poster in her subtitle. You can also get more trash-bin usage out of those produce bags from your regular shopping trips.
@elizabethgracevarga I can not remember the last time I paid for a small sized garbage bag #fyp #2024 #moneylifehack #lifehack #money #recycle #habitual ♬ IF U USE THIS SOUND UR A BADDIE - m1str3ss
How it's helping
This simple hack can save money on buying trash bags while reducing landfill plastics. According to Statista, Americans used 25 or more indoor garbage bags in the last month. It also helps people think of ways to avoid using a plastic bag and other containers only once, if at all.
You can also reuse other plastic packaging not suitable as a bag. For example, a taller plastic container or bottle can hold flowers. Old peanut butter jars are wide enough to mix other things up in, from food ingredients or paint. Do you have empty contact lens solution bottles piling up? A simple hack allows you to repurpose it for travel toiletry container usage after popping open the cap.
Are you a pet parent? Reuse plastic packaging or bags to line that smelly kitty litter box. Do your part to prevent someone from stepping in dog poop by using a small bag to scoop the poop up.
You can repurpose plastic and take your crochet skills to a new level simultaneously. Based on a unique DIY hack on Etsy, you can take some grocery plastic bags, flatten them out, cut them into pieces, create loops, and wind them into a plastic ball of yarn — or "plarn." The fun part is crocheting this plastic string into a reusable bag for shopping.
Don't forget about your standard recycling options. If you can no longer repurpose your plastic for other uses, recycling is essential to preventing it from sitting in a landfill or leaching into oceans. An abundance of plastic in the environment makes it easy to transport invasive species that hurt local biodiversity and threaten marine life by choking or entangling them and leaching toxins into wetlands.
What everyone's saying
So far, one person commented: "That's actually a good idea."
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