Saturday, February 13, 2010

Cutting down on Plastic bags

So in my effort to stop using plastic bags, it occurred to me that using plastic ziploc bags is probably just as bad. So I have been focusing on how to cut this down. First I tried reuse, now some of you may be better at cleaning these than me, but I felt like they where never clean and looked disgusting. Even if I felt they where clean they only seemed to last 2-3 uses. So plan B. I started evaluating what I was using them for. It came down to food to take to work and baked goods to take to parties and such and I'd use them to hold my cheese after I opened a package. So the cheese was the first one and that was pretty easy I got a shallow plastic container and put the cheese in that then put that in the fridge... Easy. Second, was the food I take to work, again cheese, some fruit, etc. This seemed easy once I thought about it as well, just use the reusable plastic or our mason jars for these items. I take my weeks worth of cheese on Monday and have found that a couple of my round containers fit my cut up fruit perfectly. Lastly, was the baked goods, I am still fully working this one out, as I don't really have reusable containers that are big enough to take 4 dozen cookies... Overall, though I just try to stop and think when I reach in the drawer for a plastic bag, that usually stops me because I have found that the bags are really nothing more than a convenience and now that I don't use them I don't really miss them.