KARINA BLAND

You've got this plastic bag thing in the bag (but let's put a cap on it)

Karina Bland
The Republic | azcentral.com
Sorted, bagged and ready to be donated to a senior center where volunteers use plastic bags to crochet sleeping mats for the homeless.

Carol Stull uses a plastic bag as a shower cap. (It’s adorable — she sent me a picture.)

It works, I know, because I use this strategy whenever we’re in Disneyland and ride Splash Mountain.

Sherri Revis of Chandler puts her tennis shoes inside a bag before she puts them into her gym bag so they don’t dirty her clothes. Someone suggested the same when packing suitcases.

Sheri Stroud used bags when packing up her parents’ home to wrap china and crystal service for 16. Not one piece broke. “I also used them on the everyday dishes and kitchen stuff — so much better than newspaper!” she wrote.

(Wait, better than newspaper?)

I had asked what I could do with 672 bags I had accumulated, and you emailed me so many ideas that this is the third time I’ve written about it. (You can stop now.)

Sally Thomas uses them to fluff up bean bag chairs. Bruce Burgess’ wife stuffs them into handmade decorative pillows.

Sharon Leonard uses crumpled plastic bags as packing material instead of Styrofoam peanuts.

Bonus points if you mail those packages to California, where single-use bags are banned, and people pay 10 cents apiece for reusable bags stores are allowed to sell.

Ellen Wesson sends her bags to friends there to use as trash can liners and to pick up after dogs.

There’s apparently a plastic pipeline to California because just before my friend Jean Clare left for Los Angeles, her mom texted to ask for bags.

If your mom isn’t in Los Angeles, plenty of people here want them, too.

Interfaith Cooperative Ministries Food and Clothing Bank in Phoenix bag food and clothes for clients. School nurse Beverly Hawley uses bags for soiled clothes and to send food home with students.

Just be sure to keep a few to use as shower caps. And send me a picture. 

Reach Karina at karina.bland@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8614. Read more at karinabland.azcentral.com.

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