Tiny Choices Q&A: What to do with Mesh Produce Bags?
By Karina | February 3, 2010
Welcome to Tiny Choices Q&A, where we open the floor for discussion on questions which y’all have submitted (this is a long-neglected feature, feel free to contribute your questions through our contact button to the right!)
Aimee asks:
What can we do with those red mesh plastic bags that produce sometimes comes in (mandarin oranges, tomatoes)? I try not to buy them now, but my husband and I have a big pile of them that we can’t bear to throw in the trash.
Well! actually, this is something that I’ve thought about a lot, interestingly enough. I’ve managed to come up with a few idea, and maybe y’all can pitch in with more in the comments?
- When I was a kid, my girl scout troop required us all to have a large mesh bag to put our dining kit into so it could be dunked into the big communal pots of wash and rinse water when we went on overnight trips. Do you know any scouts you could ask about this arcane practice?
- I think you could fashion a pot scrubber from these mesh bags. Maybe try tying the end of a piece of thread to the center of the bag and sew from the center out in an expanding spiral. When you’ve looped your running stitch all the way through the bag, gather the thread in so the bag collapses in on itself
- Or if you’re fancy and skilled, follow these directions to crochet a flat scrubber from your mesh bag.
- If you have a bigger bag and go camping or somewhere with communal showers, sew a strip of waste fabric or ribbon onto the top of the bag to create a neat edging and thread a thicker string or thin rope through the mesh just below the edging to make a drawstring bag. This is perfect to use as a carry-all for your soap and shampoo back and forth from the showers. You can pack locally made soaps and homemade washcloths into the bags and gift them to friends and family!
- You can follow the same make-a-bag suggestion above, and reuse the mesh bags when you go produce shopping. You’ll have new light weight reusable produce bags!
- And finally, a last idea for a scrubber - if you find flat pop-up sponges near you (I can get them at trader joes) you can use the mesh to cover the sponge for a homemade dobie.
So, Tiny Choosers? Any other ideas for Aimee?
Related posts:
- DIY Produce Bags
- Chico Bags
- Easy Peasy Tip: Wash your Reusable Bags!
- “Help me stop using plastic bags”
- Tiny Choices Survey: Erin!
- More Thoughts On Plastic Trash Bags…
- Tiny Choices Survey: Molly McKenzie
Yes, girl scouts still use mesh bags (large lingerie zip bags, if nothing else is at hand), to air dry their mess kits. I don’t know what the boy scouts do.
I used to corral small toys in produce mesh bags, especially bath toys.
i reuse at stores for produce, if i remember to take them!
i do the last one! i cut up the mesh into sponge size pieces and use it to scrub dishes that need it.
We have a number of walnut and filbert ( hazelnut ) trees. The bags are great for filling partway with the nuts and hanging them to dry.
I use the smaller ones (that small onions or garlic cloves come in) as soap holders in the shower. I tie a knot in one end, add a bar of soap, then tie the other end shut. This lets me use the soap down to the last bit, since when one bar of soap gets too small, you just add another bar on top of that and it all goes together. You could do this with the bigger bags too, if you just tied them a little differently or cut them to size.