Plastic bag shortage

It may take them 1,000 years to disappear, but let's face it, plastic carrier bags are bloody useful aren't they?

And this morning, after six months of supermarket-avoidance, my little stash of carrier bags that I keep in the utility room finally ran out.

I was cleaning out the cat litter tray when the impending crisis dawned on me. The cat, despite having access to my lovely (and yep, hugely overgrown) garden, is resolutely an indoor poo-er. All the neighbours' cats think nothing of taking a shit in my boarders - but not my own. She likes to do her business in a tray in the corner of the utility room and she likes it to be clean, thank you very much.

So every few days the litter gets emptied out into a carrier bag and then taken out to the wheelie bin. 

Until this morning when I ran out of carrier bags.

I realise there are alternatives. Loads of the local shops I now go to hand over my purchases in brown paper bags. Or there's my growing collection of 'bags for life'. But I'm not going to waste a canvas bag on the cat's tray; nor am I going to attempt to transport cat poo and soggy litter in a little brown paper bag - that could get messy.

And thinking about it, I use plastic bags for loads of different things. I put muddy horse boots into them. I empty the bathroom bin into them. I have been known, on snowy days, to use them to line my wellies.

They're just damn useful. And I don't know a single person who doesn't keep a little stash of them tucked away in a kitchen drawer or corner.

But of course, they tend to come from the supermarket. So what now?