[pct-l] trash compactor bags and their uses

[Ann Marie]

What most people have said before, but are not repeating, is that they sleep with their food but without paying for expensive odor-proof sacks.  I use a white trash compactor bag. I stuff my food and garbage in it and then also stuff the whole bag into my backpack. Sometimes my backpack is within my tent while I sleep, but not always - sleeping as a twosome takes up a lot of space - or the backpack is wet and dirty. Sometimes only the trash compactor bag makes it way inside. But most times the vestibule is a more convenient place for the bag with food if you are stuffing 2 people in a wet tent and hanging wet clothes.

I sometimes find it convenient to carry 2 trash compactor bags on long section hike, but I always carry one on any hike longer than a day hike. One keeps my daily sleeping bag and clothes forever dry. And that is all I use the first bag for. But at night a second bag can contain left-over food and garbage. Or be laid empty in a tent vestibule as a groundsheet for wet backpack or shoes. In a high-rodent area, you can stuff those trash bags within one another for extra odor control. I can sit on it on wet ground, stand on it while rinsing myself off at night (so I can enter my sleeping bag fairly clean), double-bag my food, and use it as emergency rain gear, or a small tarp. And I guess if I needed string or cord, I could cut up the second bag and twist long strips of it into cord.  


The bags seem really useful for their minor weight and incredibly low cost.


Deb