Wrangle those plastic bags!

Here's a random organizational tip for the new year.  

 

I don't know about you, but I had a mountain of plastic bags under my kitchen cabinet.  I just keep the ones you get produce in under my kitchen sink.... I keep the store bags in another spot.  The bigger store bags I just put inside one of the larger bags and I have it hanging on a hook in the laundry room.  Every once in a while I recycle the whole mess and start over.

But I use the smaller grocery store produce bags a lot in the kitchen.  I saw this idea on Pinterest (where else!).  I just stuffed a bunch of them in an empty tissue box.  I was amazed and how many it holds!  I did sort of flatten them.  I wasn't fussy or neat about it.  I just wanted them to fit a lot in and I wanted them to  pull out one at a time. I'm not sure if that's an important step, though.  It works GREAT!  You put them in here in seconds and pull them out one at a time.  Best of all?  My under-sink cabinet looks almost empty!

If you have dogs and take bags with you to clean up after them, this would be a perfect answer.  I'd keep one of the smaller (square and tall) tissue boxes near the leash.  Then pull out a bag when you go for a walk.

Edit to add:
Somebody asked me where to recycle the overflow of plastic bags.  I live in the Northwest.  Around here, most grocery stores have a container somewhere near the door for clean plastic bags (all kinds- just clean).  Every once in a while, I take the overflow with me when I go grocery shopping and pop them in the recycle container.  I also pop a few in my reusable shopping bags.  When I do my grocery shopping, I pull out my old produce bags rather than taking new ones.  But I stress that they are CLEAN bags.  I never re-use the ones that were wet inside.  Oh- and if you want to save the wet ones, just turn them inside out and leave them on your counter for a while- they'll dry out.
OK- this is MUCH more than you ever wanted to read about plastic bags.  I'll stop now.  :-)