Plastic bags: underrated and multi-use
Think outside [no box required]
I have a love-hate relationship with plastic bottles and bags – I love the many uses they have for the jungle trekker, I hate seeing them littering the trails and campsites.
The plastic bottles used for carbonated drinks are so well made that they can be reused thousands of times and last for years (hundreds of years!) and yet few people reuse them. Why can’t shops offer a refill option? You take your empty bottle in and they refill it for you on the spot and then charge you less than if you buy a new bottle off the shelf. 
No doubt the manufacturers would be against such an idea as they’d have to install some sort of refilling machine in all the shops and it would reduce their ability to brand what is essentially water with sugar in it – but so what? We should force them to do it and fine them if they don’t.
As for buying bottled water! Are we all nuts?!
Anyway, putting aside my environmental despair for a moment, and ignoring the floating island of bottles in our seas that is now half the size of Australia (!), plastic bottles and bags have numerous uses in the jungle and that’s what I cover in the video below. Some uses you may already know, others are less well known.
Plastic bags can be used to waterproof shelters, to collect water, to store water, to keep things dry (clothes, food, tinder),
to keep wet things isolated from dry stuff, to weatherproof your camera, to light a fire, to make cordage, to make an air-core pillow, as groundsheets, or as a makeshift poncho…
….and, of course, to carry out litter!
Hi Paul,
I searched those plastic bags in europe, but hadn’t any luck.
It’s actually hard to buy, usually cashiers propose to buy some for your groceries, but it’s only in detail, not in bulk.
Plus, the ones here are really thin, with big handles. I don’t like them, so for guys in Europe, here’s what I use:
– 40-60l trash bags: makes good pack liner, emergency poncho, quilt/clothes dry bag, food bag. food gets prepacked in small plastic sheets like shown in the video
– 8/15l customs bag: heavy duty plastic bag, i put my sleeping pad inside to keep it away from mud, and use it as a sit pad; good dry bag, kitchen items bag (even the pot tends to wear my other plastic bags quickly) and I can tie it out on my backpack, and still go bushwacking, it holds up!
– 4l ziplok bags: broad variety of use, but I don’t really use them, as they’re (somewhat) expensive
Another use it to wrap key items (passport, cash, medecine) in it, always glad when I’m catched by the rain.
Good surprise to see you’re into kettlebell!
Thanks for all Paul.
Hi Wawa,
Many thanks for the info and I know it’s not as easy to find those bags elsewhere (here they are very common) – someone else managed to find them on Tesco’s online shopping site. Those flimsy shopping bags you more commonly get aren’t really good enough for most of the purposes.
As for the kettlebell….not mine, but my wife’s although I know a lot of people really rate them as exercise tools.
Cheers!
Paul
Hi Paul,
here is something interesting you can do with those plastic PET soda bottles – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQeeJEpBYsg it’s in Russian though.
Those bottles make good fire starters as well, as they burn pretty much better than other plastics. The worst to burn are garbage bags, they will never catch fire, probably flame retardants added in to prevent landfill fires. Btw you shouldn’t bbq on a fire started using plastic , it will stink your food , not to mention the toxins released by the plastic.
cheers!
Hi Nadir,
Great to hear from you and many thanks for the link. Someone else pointed me to this video and it’s well worth watching. I was wondering whether it would be possible to do the same thing with a parang by using some sort of spacer attached to the blade…will give it a go sometime!
I didn’t know that garbage bags won’t light so thanks for that info and ‘yes’ you are absolutely right about fumes and toxins. To me that method is an emergency method when everything has got too wet to light and not something to be used everyday.
Anyway, thanks again for the link and info.
Cheers!
Paul
This is so simple and effective! It makes me wonder what else can be done with common items. You do some outstanding work, and I love the youtube channel.
Hi SurplusSupply,
Many thanks for the comment and support – much appreciated – and glad you liked the video. Plastics are particularly useful in the jungle as it’s such a wet and humid environment. A friend of mine was involved in testing water bottles and did a comparison test between a simple plastic soda bottle and various commercial outdoor canteens (if I remember rightly they tied the bottles to the back of a LandRover and dragged them around) – the plastic soda bottles stood up better than most of the commercial canteens!
Anyway, Thanks again,
Cheers!
Paul
That was a great video, but I have not seen those bags in the US grocery stores. However, an online search indicates the bags might be available as HDPE liners for trash cans. Is there any labeling on the box showing that your bags are HDPE plastic? Or maybe PEHD which Wikipedia indicates is the same thing. Is the thickness labeled as well? The bags I see on Amazon are 10 gallon and 0.23 mils thick. Other sizes and shapes are also available (side gusset, square bottom, etc).
Love the videos. I have been doing some marathong sessions trying to get through all of them. I am in the north east of the US, no jungle here, but still plenty of great advice and tips that can be applied and adapted wherever we find ourselves. I like your presentation too. Just the right mix of hands on and commentary, never boring.
Hi Kickplate,
Many thanks for the comment and kind words, much appreciated. I’ve just replied to another comment from Dan in the US asking the same question and, although I’m not 100% sure on this, I think you are right that the bags are high density polyethylene.
OK, I’ve just gone downstairs to check the bags and they are, indeed, HDPE. There isn’t any info on the the larger bags thickness but the smaller ones are 0.02mm. My feeling is that the larger bags are slightly thicker than that.
Anyway, hope that helps and very glad that doe of the jungle tips from here can be adapted for use over there.
Cheers!
Paul