Bin Bags are great items for survival mainly due to their water resistance. This means they can be used for a whole range of things that come in very handy.
Firstly, you can cut a holes in the sealed end of the bag for your arms and head and use it as a makeshift poncho. They can also be used to cover your legs or boots for extra waterproofing or they could even be used as a hood as well as a cover for your bag. Or of course, do all of these things for a full waterproof suit.
You can also cut them open and join them together with some tape to use them as a tarp for a makeshift shelter or wind break. They can also be laid over a wooden frame of a more permanent shelter to help with the waterproofing aspect.
They can also be stuffed with leaves to make a pillow or mattress. Laying directly on the ground will suck heat away from you very quickly. Also, if you don’t have a blanket or sleeping bag you can always cover yourself with a couple of them to help retain heat and stay dry while you are sleeping.
You can also dig a hole and line it with the bag or hammer steaks into the ground to hold the bag open. Both will enable to you catch rain water. To speed this process up, if you have a tarp set up you can angle the tarp to drain the water from your shelter straight into the bag.
Similarly, they can be used to carry water from one location to another. This is very handy if your camp isn’t close to water. Some bags are very strong and will enable you to store and transport fairly large amounts of water.
Obviously they can be used to carry other items too. This will also ensure that sure whatever items you keep in the bag stay dry.
If you’re in a building you can use them to black out the windows, this is hugely important in an urban location as you will most likely want to stay hidden. At night in a post-apocalyptic situation, where there is no power, even a tea light will shine like a beacon out of a window attracting other people to your location. If you tape around the edges, this will also help keep out gas if there is a chemical attack.
A couple of other creative ways to use the colored bags is to signal your location to other people. You can hoist one up a tree as a flag to help people find you or, in high winds you could even make a kite for long range visibility.
Finally, they can also be used to trap air and therefore used as a buoyancy aid when crossing water.