Protective insert for a plastic trash bag

A dual-configuration holder for plastic trash bags of the type that are not self-supporting when they are empty, said holder having an expanded mode in which it is adapted to support a trash bag with its top open in a square configuration;

• to that trash may be easily inserted therein, and said holder also having a collapsed mode in which it may be stored in an essentially flat and relatively compact manner, comprising:
• a set of serially connected structural panels that are permanently joined together along certain of their edges in such a way as to form an elongated tube, said tube having a length dimension that is oriented vertically when the tube is normally positioned to support a trash bag in an upright condition, and the surfaces of the panels being generally smooth and the panels being joined in such a way that the tube is switchable at will between an expanded and a collapsed mode, and the length of the tube being just slightly less than the height of an open trash bag for which the holder has been designed, and the girth of an expanded tube being approximately the same as the circumference of an open trash bag, such that the collapsed tube can be easily inserted into a bag and temporarily expanded to fully support the bag in its open condition--both when the bag is oriented vertically and when it is oriented horizontally, whereby the presence of the holder inside the trash bag protects the bag from being linearly torn when a sharp object is manually inserted into the open bag--by virture of the fact that the sharp object will contact an interior surface of one of the structural panels instead of contacting the bag wherein the circumference of the opening in the trash bag that is to be supported is a value that can be ascertained by measurement, and wherein the girth of the connected panels of the holder in their expanded mode is within two percent of that ascertained value, whereby the expanded panels can fit within an open trash bag but only with a relatively tight fit, and whereby a trash bag will be inherently supported throughout its entire length by an expanded holder without the need for any auxiliary clips or hooks.