The $8 Hack That’ll Make Storing Your Trash Bags a Million Times Better

We talk a lot about organizing the space under your kitchen sink. We’ve covered the brilliant idea of using a tension rod as a holder for spray bottles, we’ve had a writer wax poetic about her favorite inexpensive organizer, we’ve come up with a smart way to use a towel holder, and more. We’ve also talked a lot about trash bags and cans — why cheap cans just aren’t worth it, where to store your trash can, and how to keep the bag from slipping into the can. But there’s one thing in this figurative Venn diagram that we haven’t really covered: storing your trash bags.

We know that most of you keep them under the kitchen sink and that it’s a storage solution that works … just fine. It’s not amazing. It is what it is — a cardboard box with a sloppily torn access window and a roll of bags. If you’re lucky, the box will hold off on falling apart until you can use up the last bag.

You probably don’t think much about how you store your trash bags, but what if we told you that we had a smart trick that will make your system a million times better? A trick that will free up under-the-sink space and make grabbing a new one as easy as pulling off a paper towel? Interested? Keep reading.

The idea is simple: Hang the roll of bags on the side of your cabinet (or on the back of a cabinet door), and then just pull one off as you need it.

To DIY the setup, you just need a pair of cafe rod brackets, a round wooden dowel, and a few tools (a measuring tape, a screwdriver, and maybe a handsaw to cut the dowel down to size).

Cut your dowel down to a one-foot piece or ask someone at your local hardware store to do it for you when buy it. Then, measure and mark where you’ll hang the cafe rod brackets (they should be less than one foot apart so that the dowel can slide in and sit comfortably). Screw the brackets into place and make sure the dowel fits. Then, remove the roll of trash bags from their box, push the dowel through the roll, and hang the whole thing on the brackets. Every time you finish a roll, just slide a new one on (like toilet paper!) and you’re all set. Again, this frees up space in your cabinet and it makes it incredibly easy to grab a new bag when you need it.

How (or where) do you store your kitchen trash bags?