It’s always cool to find new ways to recycle commonly used items otherwise destined for the landfills, especially when those items are plastic. So I was intrigued by the idea of turning a used dog food bag into a reusable grocery bag, and had to try it out being that I regularly go through dog food bags, having a dog and all. And as you can see in the top photo, I managed to complete the project! I decided to cut the bag to about 90% of its original height, making it a little more manageable of a size but still a bit bigger than a standard size paper grocery bag, as seen below.
The most difficult part of the project was probably washing the bag out, which I had to do three times before the fishy smell was pretty well gone, being that I feed Dakota salmon food. Then I let the clean bag air out for a week or two for all remaining dog food smell to dissipate, before actually beginning the creating of the new item the old bag would become.
Using a thin strip of the plastic from the the top section I had cut off for the handle, about an inch and a half wide before folding in half, all I had left to do was sew the newly created handle to the bag. I decided to use fishing line instead of thread, and sewed a a seam up both of the sides as well as the top and bottom of the handle for maximum strength.
After repeating the process on the other side of the bag, my new reusable grocery bag was complete and ready for use, made fully with recycled material apart from the fishing line, though someone who fishes at all could probably even recycle some old fishing line and get it made from 100% recycled materials. In this particular case, being originally constructed to hold 25 pounds of dog food, the material itself is ultra heavy duty for use as a grocery bag. And testing it out with some food in it, I see that it will work great and hold a good amount of food.
I was super excited, and may make some more in the future, and eventually give them away or even try to sell some. It would definitely be the kind of craft I think would probably sell at a farmer’s market in any place where people are concerned about the human impact on the earth and environment. And although I haven’t actually used it at the grocery store yet, I found an immediate use for it as a bear hang bag, and it held probably about 10 pounds of food for a couple days with no problem, so I think the handle will hold in place for long-term use.
For a while now I had already been making an effort to save all of my dog food bags to use as trash bags, but this is an even better use in the sense that the bag doesn’t ever need to get thrown away, at least not for the life of the bag which I suspect would be many years under normal use as a grocery bag.
And although the ideal for me at least would be to eventually make my own dog food - both for healthier food as well as to avoid buying the ultimately unnecessary bags - in the mean time I thought this was a really cool, practical and cheap way to get some reusable grocery bags, for anyone that has a dog or knows a friend that does. They can be custom made to just about any size one wants, and I’m sure with a little extra effort you could even paint a cool design over the original printing, but I kinda like the dog food bag look so that people who see it in use are inspired of the unconventional ways commonly used items can be recycled.
I can’t take credit for coming up with the idea myself, but after putting the idea into practice and seeing that it is definitely a useable end product that most anyone with a dog and some basic sewing skills can construct themself with almost no financial investment, I wanted to share this cool project with others. And who knows, maybe some other people will end up creating their own versions of the project, if you do, please share as I’d love to see some others. And I suppose that doing this on a larger scale could even become a small business for someone. We need as many people thinking outside of the box to come up with these types of ideas, in order to create the positive change in the world that we all hope to help make and see one day. I am just grateful I stumbled upon the idea myself, and had the time and ability to actually go through with the project myself.