My Solution to Organize Plastic Bags in Front Closet

Do you have a spot in your house that’s like an “off-limits” area?

I’m talking like “Danger zone, do not enter in case of falling objects”.

For me, that was the front closet right by our front door. We kept old coats in there, but we also stored any and all plastic grocery bags in there.

And by “Stored”, I mean “Throw them inside and shut the door real quick before any fall out”.

It was bad, friends. It got so bad that even the thought of going through it all made me freeze up. That classic ADHD feeling of you kind of know what to do about it, but you can’t make yourself start.

I really wanted easy access to my closet, and a better storage solution for this stash of bags.

In this post, I document my process of cleaning out our front closet. From getting rid of old coats to finally organizing all of the plastic shopping bags, I’m laying it all out for you. And hopefully the following method will give you some inspiration to clean out your own closet, or at least do something about the hoard of plastic bags.

Here are the steps I took to tackle this mess:

Take inventory of front closet

My first step: I forced myself to open the door all the way and stepped back as bags came falling from all sides. After pushing those aside, I looked at what I had to deal with:

• Coats hanging from the hangers
• Coats on the inside of the door, hung up by a door hook
• Tons of plastic bags- on the floor, inbetween the coats, on top of the shelf in the closet
• Multiple reusable shopping bags that I take grocery shopping to Aldi every week

I didn’t see much else in there, so at least I knew what I was messing with.

Make a to-do list

Next up, I made a list of all the things I needed to do. This included:

• Gather up all plastic bags
• Gather up all tote bags
• Find coats that are too old/don’t fit anymore

Writing things down helps me break up a huge task into much smaller ones, so it’s more manageable for my ADHD brain.

Clear out all bags

Here came the scary part for me: Finding all of the plastic bags and grouping them into one huge pile.

I pulled down all the bags on the top shelf and started stuffing them into each other, creating smaller piles of overfilled bags. The ones that weren’t in good condition (AKA had holes) went into the trash.

Then I worked my way down to the floor and put on a glove to pull out the rest. I have weird sensory issues and don’t like reaching into unknown places with my bare hands, especially if spiders are a possibility.

Once I was finished, I just stopped and stared at the endless pile of bags. I honestly can’t believe we let it get that bad. But we did a lot of Wal Mart grocery pickup, and all those single-use plastic bags all added up after awhile.

Donate or recycle old bags

While I went through the plastic bags, I also found a bunch of reusable bags that I forgot we had. The ones I didn’t need went into a pile, and the rest was set aside. And I found some paper bags from Aldi, which went into recycling.

I looked at this huge disaster and knew I didn’t need all of these bags. So I set the reusable bags in my donation bin, and I took all but one huge group of plastic bag bags to Meijer. They have a bin to recycle old plastic bags and I was glad to get rid of them! Your local grocery store may have one right up front.

Donate old coats

We had a lot of coats in the closet. Ones I forgot I even had, and ones that didn’t fit my daughter anymore. I put everything in a pile, and had both her and my husband look through them and figure out which they wanted to keep.

Here’s what the front closet looks like now. I seriously feel SO much better knowing that I can open the door and not worry about being attacked by bags. We have more storage space and my brain feels free!

My collection of reusable bags now hangs on a lower hook on the inside of the door. It’s super convenient to grab and go when I need to shop!

Store plastic bags in a centralized location

Now that I had a more manageable pile of plastic bags, what do I DO with them?

I went to Amazon and got two of these bag holders. My idea was to hang them on the hooks inside the door and just pull out what we need. They don’t take up a lot of space and are easy to reach.

I also started something fun I saw, where you roll up the bags in a certain way and then you can pull them out just like tissues or wipes. Then I realized I’d have to start that process over again once the bags ran out, and my ADHD brain said “NOPE”.

So now I just stuff the bags in through the top of the bag holder, and pray that I only pull out a single plastic bag through the bottom. But hey, at least they’re all in one location!

Here are some other ideas I’ve seen lots of people post for storing plastic bags. These seem to be for more compact areas, like in the passenger seat compartment in your car. Still super convenient and creative ways to store them, though!

• Baby wipe containers, in different shapes and sizes
• Empty tissue box
• Shoe box

Final thoughts

There are TONS of storage solutions out there. This is currently the easiest way for me to maintain these bags on a daily basis, and are an effective way to keep things organized.

The idea here is to give you ideas, and to help you declutter and organize your space, a little at a time.

Leave a comment and tell me: What storage ideas do you use for your plastic or reusable bags?