There’s a $17 Tool You Need if You’re Reusing Plastic Baggies (or Buying Reusable Ones)

A change in even one small daily life habit can make an impact. Take cutting down on your single-use plastic baggies in the kitchen. Whether you’re switching to commercial reusable baggies, or cleaning and re-using the so-called “disposable” ones, you’re cutting down drastically on buying and discarding plastics—which saves money, minimizes waste, and feels great.

Not that it’s easy. Along the way, you’ll discover that not only do you need to wash all these bags you’re using, you also need to dry them, thoroughly. Drying baggies is a task that’s often easier said than done, thanks to a slim profile that’s designed to keep air out instead of in.

This is where this plastic bag holder shines. It’s unobtrusive enough to leave out exactly where you need it, right by the sink next to your dish drying rack. You can dry up to four plastic or reusable bags at a time on its humble tines.

But the plastic bag dryer is useful beyond just keeping your bags propped open so they can dry. Multipurpose functionality is one thing I look for when considering a new gadget that deserves to take up space in my kitchen, and this tool has it.

The rack is also handy for drying water bottles, carafes, and glass bottles you’ve washed and want to re-use and re-purpose. In addition, you can use it to prop bags open as you fill them. (Anyone who’s ever tried to ladle leftover soup into a bag will appreciate this use every time they employ it!)

You can also use the bag dryer to hold a bag for containing kitchen scraps as you chop veggies. Whether you take the scraps to the compost pile or you tie up the bag so it doesn’t smell in the garbage, the option to keep your counters clean is a kitchen-cleanup game-changer.

If you’d rather not buy a new gadget, you can use the old drape-it-over-a-spoon technique: just prop a wooden spoon into a jar, then hang your baggie from the handle. But when you’ve been using more baggies than you’re used to, or you’re committed to eliminating regular plastic baggies as much as possible, you might have more bags to dry than spoons to dry them over.