A green-thumbed TikTok creator has shared a handy use for plastic grocery bags that might otherwise end up going to a landfill. With her hack, you'll be able to help your plants grow tall and strong.
The scoop
TikToker Ashley Marie (@bodybybacon89) shared a quick video that demonstrates a tip she learned from her grandmother: putting old plastic grocery bags to good use in the garden.
To try it out, you start off by folding the grocery bag, as Marie demonstrates.
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From there, you simply cut the bag into strips, which should leave you with circular strips of plastic. You can then cut through the circles, resulting in simple strips — perfect for trying around plants to keep them growing tall and straight along a fence or plant post.
From each "circle," Ashley Marie says she usually gets two plant ties and demonstrates how she uses them to tie her droopy tomato plants to their sticks. Seeing as she can make so many, she hooks the rest onto a fence for later use.
How this helps
With Americans using a staggering 100 billion plastic bags each year, finding a way to put them to better use than simply transporting our food home is a big win. Indeed, seeing as these bags require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture, we'd better make sure every bit of value is squeezed out of them.
It's also worth noting that only between 1% to 3% of plastic bags are recycled each year in the United States, so taking it into your own hands to find handy uses for them extends their lifetime and value without simply throwing them away where they end up in a landfill.
What people are saying
People in the comments were amazed by the idea, with one person writing, "That is a great hack! Imma have to use it this year."
Another commenter suggests another way of using this hack, writing, "My mother taught me to do something similar with nylons, but nylons used to be worn more often back when I was a kid."
Ashley Marie replies back, saying, "Oh that would make a good tie too! nice and soft wouldn't cut into the plants!"
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