Household Items That Can Be Repurposed As Plastic Bag Storage

How are you doing with your 'bag of bags'? You know — that big bag you have that's storing tens or maybe even hundreds of plastic bags and taking up space in your home. Or perhaps you don't have a bag of bags, but a pile of bags stuffed into a drawer or a cabinet. Some folks like to declutter old plastic bags by folding them into little triangles, but you may find that method a bit labor-intensive. Consider the ease and convenience of turning a household item you already own into effective and even attractive storage. For example, you can repurpose an old coffee can to organize plastic bag clutter or upcycle a tissue box.

Keep in mind, your household item should be clean and dry before you begin repurposing any materials. Certain containers, like tissue boxes and cleaning wipe containers, are designed so that when you pull out a tissue or wipe, the next one pops up to replace it. That magic works because of the way the contents are packaged in the container. You can achieve the same effect with most repurposed bag storage items by slipping part of each bag through the handles of another bag, repeating the process for all bags you're placing in the container. 

A baby wipe container works well for plastic bag storage because it's already made to have items yanked out of its opening. You can choose to leave the container as is — some baby wipes containers already come in nice designs — or decorate it with paint or stylish adhesive-backed paper. This kind of container doesn't have a very large capacity for plastic bags, but it is nicely portable for road trips. You could also make these for multiple rooms in your home. 

A variation on the repurposed classic tissue box holder for bag storage is a tissue box cover in a single or double version. These covers come in a variety of materials — acrylic, rattan, metal, wood, leather, and more – so your repurposed version will fit nicely with your decor. You can turn the cover to vertically and mount it on the wall or leave it sitting horizontally on a surface. The bags are easy to grab and reload into the cover.

Cleaning wipes containers are a convenient size, making them great to repurpose as plastic bag storage that you can keep in a kitchen cabinet or in your car, so you always have a plastic bag when you need one. After using all of the wipes and removing the internal plastic wrapper that many wipe products come with, consider decorating the container. For cylindrical containers like this one, you can take the next step in the bag-linking method described above by rolling your linked bags into a cylindrical shape that you can slip right into the container.

This take on repurposing PVC pipe into plastic bag storage shines for its size flexibility. Unlike fixed-size items, PVC pipe comes in various diameters and can be cut to the length you desire. A foot-long piece of 4-inch diameter pipe is a good start and will hold about four dozen bags, but you can get PVC pipe up to 10 inches in diameter. Use a jigsaw to cut a cartoon-mousehole-shaped opening to pull bags from, and place a PVC end cap on it to keep bags in. Wall mount it for convenient bag storage.

If you choose a cylindrical oatmeal container to repurpose for plastic bag storage, you'll probably want to decorate it to mask its true identity; you can even decorate the top if you wish. Remember that the container is made of thin cardboard, so paint may not be the best medium to use, as it may weaken it. Try adhesive-backed decorative paper instead, or glue scrapbooking paper onto the container. Cut a hole about the size of a quarter in the top to pull the plastic bags from. 

This novel idea involves upcycling the lower part of a pant leg off a pair of trousers or jeans. You can also use part of a shirt sleeve instead if you have some old shirts you no longer wear. Make a hem at both ends of the cut leg. Feed a drawstring through one hem for the top of the bag container and elastic through the other hem as the bottom of the container. You can load bags into the top end and pull them out from the bottom. 

Your cylindrical chip cans, like the oatmeal container, have branding that you'll likely want to cover up, and 8½-by-11-inch scrapbook paper does the job. Well, almost. It's just a tad short, but you can cover that last ⅛ inch or so with washi tape — or use paper that coordinates with the color of the can. You can affix it to the canister with hot glue. Label the final storage container with stick-on letters or a marker, if desired. This portable, small-capacity storage solution takes up much less space than a pile of bags.

One of the more spacious household items to repurpose into plastic bag storage is a sturdy wine box. A handy feature of a wine box is the top that comes off easily for loading more bags. Consider gluing a small drawer pull to the top to make it even easier. A hole is cut in the base to dispense bags, and the wine box storage container can be mounted on the wall too. Now that you have a convenient organizer, you can focus on creative ways to repurpose plastic bags around the house.