Davis Instruments Knot-a-Bag

The humble plastic bag is an indispensable item for anyone who spends time in the outdoors. Whether stowing food for an overnight backpacking trip, transporting a wet swimsuit or wrapping up a cell phone to keep it dry in the rain, the ubiquitous plastic bag is a simple, inexpensive and low-tech solution.

Davis Instruments (www.davisnet.com), a company that sells products for the marine, weather and automotive industries, has a new product that is essentially a plastic bag dispenser created for the outdoors market. The Knot-a-Bag product is a compact container stuffed with tightly-wound polyethylene plastic film that pulls out through a small dispenser hole.

An integrated bag cutter allows you to slice the thin spool of plastic at any length, after which the material can be unfurled to form a plastic tube and knotted on both ends to create a bag with a 24-inch circumference.

The Knot-a-Bag’s cylindrical case measures less than 4 inches tall and about 2 inches wide. It weighs 3 ounces with a new roll of plastic film, which provides 32.5 feet of plastic-bag material. It costs $7 for the dispenser and two rolls.

You can create as many bags as desired out of the product’s roll of plastic, and they can vary in length from just a couple inches to 5-feet-long or more. Uses the company markets include packing food, stowing wet clothing, stashing trash, storing just-caught fish, and picking up after your dog on the trail. I’d throw in the ad hoc protection of electronics gear like cell phones and walkie talkies from unexpected rainfall, as well as the surreptitious stashing of soiled diapers while out on a nature hike with baby.

The bags are waterproof and about as durable as a standard plastic grocery store bag, with a thickness of 0.36 mil. They are made of a polyethylene plastic that can be recycled. The Knot-a-Bag case has a sturdy clip for attaching the product to a belt, backpack or dog leash.

Davis Instruments sells a Knot-a-Bag Refill Pack for $7, which includes three new rolls of plastic, each with 32.5 feet of spooled plastic for the creation of dozens of indispensable little bags.