Do you have clothes stored in dry cleaner bags in your closet? Go take them out! Right now. Go ahead.

Seriously, go. I’ll wait.

Hello, again. Why am I on a crusade against dry cleaning bags? I’d love to say it’s about the island of plastic in the ocean, and yes, I do care a great deal about that. But it’s not even that noble. Dry cleaner bags are just bad. For your clothes. For your closet. For your routine.

If you dry clean things often enough, why not invest in a reusable bag? That can serve as storage for dirty clothes, a visual cue to head to the cleaners, an environmentally friendly alternative to all of that forsaken plastic, and an imperative to unpack your clothes right away.

When I was lazier about dry cleaner bags, my clothes suffocated in all that plastic, unable to vent off the dry cleaner chemicals, succumbing to humidity.

So much space in my closet was taken up by those bags, those padded hangers, those THANKS FOR YOUR BUSINESS paper wraps. Marie Kondo would call it “gomi,” or trash.

Those pieces were less accessible because of that one additional step to retrieval. And, sure, plastic is transparent, but I’m convinced humans are incapable of really, truly seeing an article of clothing smooshed inside a dry cleaner bag.

If I’ve dry cleaned an item, it’s because I’ve actually worn it. If I love it enough to wear it, bring it to a dry cleaner, pay for the service, and bring it home a few days later, why oh why stop short of taking it out of the bag?!?! What is one more step in the process of properly caring for my possessions and streamlining my space?

So nowadays, I follow the one-minute rule and take the clothes out of dry cleaners bag immediately.

And I think very hard about acquiring a dry-clean only item. I make plenty of shopping (and career) decisions based on maintaining my majority machine washable wardrobe. No shame in that game.