Don't Throw Out Plastic Bread Tags – Use Them As Cable Ties Instead

If you have more than a couple of items in your setup, it's pretty likely that you're going to start to have some problems with tangled cables and messy living spaces. Cable clutter can be easily organized with a few gadgets like cable ties, sleeves, and clips. But what might surprise you is that you may already have something hugely helpful lying around at home.

Reusing common items for your home tech setup helps reduce plastic use in two ways: first off, it stops you from generating more waste by throwing out plastic that could be used again. Secondly, it lowers your overall consumption because you won't need to buy new plastic cable ties to organise your cables. And, naturally, lowering your consumption also helps you save money. It's a win/win.

Some plastic bread tags can be recycled in select areas, but it depends entirely on what material the tag is made from and what facilities are available where you live. Reusing them instead gives them a new lease of life, and they can come in really handy, particularly if you have a lot of cables lying around.

Keeping track of which cord is which is a challenge once you have more than a handful of cables in your setup. And, if you're someone who has a gaming setup or works from home, you're pretty likely to have a lot of cables knocking around. Labelling them is a key way of keeping on top of this. Plastic bread tags can come in a wide range of different colors, depending on which baked goods you buy, so you can color-code your belongings using them. Unless you're a real creature of habit, you might be surprised by how many different colors of tags you accumulate.

Not into color coordination? You can also easily write on plastic bread tags using permanent markers like Sharpies. If you want to leave more detailed information on a tag, then you might find thinner pens like fineliners to be more useful, given that the tags are pretty small. No more guessing whether to unplug the red or blue wire. Just be careful to make sure you don't put the tags anywhere that gets too hot to make sure they can't melt.

Cable ties can be useful in a pinch to hold wires and cords together or to help keep them in a certain place. This is a great way of stopping cables from getting tangled up, which is impractical, ugly, and can even be a fire risk in some cases. 

Plastic bread tags can work well as a replacement for conventional ties, and they save you from buying more stuff. It's easiest to use bread ties to wrap loose cables when not in use. Just wrap your cable neatly around itself, then grab your bread tag and place it around it. This should keep your cable tidy until you next want to use it.

Using them to hold cables in place is slightly more challenging, but still possible. In this case, they basically replace cable clips. Stick the bread tag to wherever you want to route your cable around — it could be the underside of a desk for a gaming PC setup, for example — with the open side of the tag facing a way that the cable can go into it. You can then put your cable inside the tags. For easy removal later, try using something like small command strips, putty, or similar to adhere the tags where you want them.