Do You Reuse the Ziplocks?
August 22, 2007 by Deborah Ng
Filed under Around the House, Doing it Yourself, Eco Simplicity, General, Reusing and Recycling, Simple Pleasures
One sign of a true cheapskate is all of the ziplock bags hanging over the dish drain. If a bag didn’t contain raw meat, I don’t have any problems washing and reusing them. While I use these bags to freeze sauce and contain leftovers, I found one more use for them.
My family likes to go to a lake close by to swim. It’s inside a state park and doesn’t cost much for us to go as a family. We pack a picnic lunch and swim, eat and enjoy each other’s company for a few hours. The thing is, I don’t like buying ice for our cooler. We do have some of those reusable ice block things that my mom always forgets to bring home with her, but those aren’t always enough on a hot day.
I like to take the freezer ziplocks, fill them with water and freeze them. Several of these frozen water bags work great at keeping our food and drinks cool for the three or four hour afternoon at the lake. Since they’re filled with water, you can either refreeze them for the next trip, or use the water in your plants, cleaning or cooking. The inside of the bag isn’t dirty either , so you can just dry out the bags and use them to hold food or other items.
Ah! Great idea. Ziploc bags are definitely one of my going green downfalls. I love them!
When I did use them I did wash and reuse..Now I am collecting vintage refrigerator jars and containers…I love how they look-beautiful glass..
Good idea. I do the same thing, but with leftover plastic beverage bottles — instead of recycling them right away, I fill them with water and freeze them. They fit great in the corners of our big cooler.
I try to use Tupperware instead. It holds up better with a million washes. My problem with plastic baggies is I won’t wash them too often if I use them so I can’t let myself.
When we lived in Europe, like about 13 years ago, they didn’t have Ziploc bags where we lived. We had someone ship them to us and we washed and reused them over and over again. We would hang them over our sink on a line to drip dry.
They lasted us almost a year. I still to this day hate throwing them away. I feel so wasteful. I’m like Jennifer, I do try to use plastic containers as much as possible.
I usually reuse plastic bottles by putting them in the freezer full of water to use in coolers too .. another plus is that freezers are more efficient when full, so the bottles of water help make the freezer run better too! A big plus in the summer when our big chest freezer is less full. The more square bottles fill in the corners of the cooler rather well..we usually take a cooler with us when grocery shopping or going to Sam’s Club to keep things safe as we run other errands on the way home. It’s also nice to freeze some lemon slices in the bottles to make some flavored water for the kids that’s nice and cold and makes them less likely to want juice boxes at the store
The packages with meat, I use to throw away the grease after it cools.
@dh (she’s my sister incognito!!! Hi Diana!!) I also use the ones that held meat for the garbage. So if I’m preparing a meal and there’s wrappers or mushy parts or fat or anything that needs to be thrown away, I put it in the bag instead of running to the garbage. It’s sort of like Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl but I don’t wash it.
I’m a big bag reusuer! I keep bread bags for bones and that type of garbage, and reuse the zippered bags for everything.
I bought a baby bottle dryer at a yard sale years ago and use it to dry the bags on. Sometimes I just stick some of my big cooking implements, spatulas, wooden spoons etc into the drainboard and pop the bags over those.