This. I often re-use Ziplock bags for bread and bread-like items (tortillas, for example) and I also have some re-usable silicon bags as well.
I have a few Ziplock bags in the freezer for breadcrumbs and similar. I think they’ve been there for years.
I don’t think I’ve ever washed out a single-use Ziplock bag.
Too late to edit, but there is one case where I reuse Ziplock bags. I put each travel tolietry item in it’s own Ziplock bag as additional protection for leakage. In the case of a leak, both the container and the Ziplock bag get tossed, after I used up the contents (liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc.).
All the time. Any bag that held non-liquid contents gets reused as a cat poop bag when I scoop the litter boxes.
I reuse every plastic bag that comes in the house if it is a usable size. Some must be ten years old and I’m still washing, drying, and reusing them. I don’t see the down side.
I hate the whole concept of single-use-turn-it-to-garbage.
Between saving paper and cardboard for tinder for winter fires (our house is about 75% heated with wood), composting all biodegradeable discards, and recycling what is possible, the only thing we send to landfill is plastic. Which I so wish had an alternative to.
Same here. If it is a bag used for, say, Q-Tips for travel I have no problem re-using the bag.
If anything wet goes in other than water (which I never do because why?) then it is garbage once done.
I definitely do not re-use if food has been in there. Even chips (leave oil behind) or crackers which leave crumbs or sandwiches (crumbs and maybe other stuff). They might get re-used if done in the same day (re-fill with crackers on a road-trip) but it doesn’t get cleaned and re-used.
Do you actually sterilize any items in your kitchen? That takes more that soap and/or dishwasher, that would take an autoclave. Kitchens are not expected to be sterile, just properly cleaned.
I meant dishwasher safe temperatures. That’s pretty hot and improves cleaning. I don’t think ziploc bags would survive a dishwasher on the heated cleaning cycle.
But a dishwasher doesn’t eeach autoclave temps.
Some people don’t reuse them?
It depends what was in it. Sometimes I reuse and sometimes I do not.
If possible I usually use a small leftover container. I can use and reuse those easily but they aren’t always feasible.
I use as few as possible. Mostly put leftovers in the fridge uncovered. When I did use them for freezer I reused them. I don’t think you should put them in dishwasher. If they get loose and get in the grinder and ruin the machine.
I have found compostable freezer bags and plant based garbage bags these days- so progress is being made.
I reuse them if they’ve contained dry material and can be reused without washing. If they contain something that might contaminate the next contents, I don’t trust that I can wash them well enough to get them completely clean. Also, the effects of water use, energy to heat the water, and soap to clean each bag is likely to exceed the environmental impact of one additional plastic bag in the landfill.
BTW, I have to plug my favorite zipper plastic bags, from Elkay. They’re much better than standard ZipLoc bags – thicker plastic, easier to seal and a much more secure seal, and they cost less than half the price of ZipLocs. (For some reason the Amazon listing doesn’t specify the size of the bags; they’re 8x10 inches.)
I make waffles (from scratch of course) once every month or two. If we each eat two, that leaves 3-5 uneaten. When they are cool, I stack them with a paper towel separator between them and put them in a ziplock freezer bag. Same bag, reused over and over for years (paper towels too).
It’s not that I’m a huge ecologist, more that I’m a cheapskate. (Although I’ve gotten my gf’s acceptance of the practice by stressing the ecology)
Occasionally, but not often. I’ve never successfully washed one, but may reuse them in situations where I’m not worried about spoilage.
I have washed paper plates, though: I wash the ones I use to thaw the chicken, dry it in the microwave, and then use it as a plate. But I don’t reuse them after that. Too dirty.
This thread is weird to me.
I reuse them so routinely, this question resembles “Do you re-wear socks?” to me.
I must have plastic bags that I’ve reused five dozen bags. I throw them out when they get holes in them, and sometimes I pitch them if they’ve contained something particularly vile or that’s gone bad in the fridge, but otherwise I just regularly put them in the dishwasher, typically inside-out and placed over a jar or tall glass (whose exteriors I don’t really need to clean) and they come out of the DW as clean as new.
It’s about 1% more trouble to put them in the dw as it is to put them in the trash, and a lot cheaper and less wasteful.
I don’t understand how the plastic bag industry is still around, but I guess there are all types of people in this world.
The downside is that Ziploc and other similar ‘food grade’ plastic bags are made from low density polyethylene (LDPE); while it is not as noxious as the polyethylene terephthalate used in clear beverage bottles, BOPET food packaging, and woven polymer textiles, it does break down pretty easily releasing both bioactive endocrine disruptors and greenhouse gases (methane and ethylene), particularly when heated or stored for long periods of time.
I do use self-sealing bags for a number of purposes such as packaging medical items (reused to store medical waste), storing and transporting books and document, and carrying soiled/wet shoes and equipment that can’t be cleaned on-site, but I would not use these with food items, and particularly would not reuse. If you want reusable flexible ‘plastic’ bags, silicone polymers are much more robust, easier to clean and sterilize, and can tolerate heat and freezing better than LDPE polymers.
Stranger
I wash and reuse clingwrap. The “cling” does wear out.
Yes, we wash and reuse ZipLock bags many times, unless they break.
How well can you wash a paper plate? Raw chicken juice penetrating the paper plate and you “wash annd dry” and then eat off it? Where do you thaw the bird?
No you should not do that anymore.
I did the same, although they lasted only about 3-4 years, and all of mine failed at the seal/zipper rather than the seems. Still was a pretty good reduction in plastic use. These days, I generally use something else for everything I used to use zip lock bags for. Normally, harder sided re-usable generic “gladware” sandwich or 1.5 cup liquid containers, plus a few slightly larger ones. They’re generally washable until the lids crack, or the containers crack after many uses, and they’re less likely to spring a leak or otherwise be physically compromised.
I think the last time I used a ziplock was a recent trip to Dallas and Austin, and had to have transparent plastic bags to transport my gels/fluids, as the old ones had more or less fallen apart.
In the fridge we have a general cheese bag, a blue cheese bag and a cooked meat bag. all washed and re-used until they fall to bits. Our major use of ziplock type bags is for freezing garden/allotment produce and foraged fruit - they also are re-used until they fall to bits. Like a few others, if a plastic bag enters thehouse, it will be reused over and again.
I avoid cling wrap where I can. I don’t re-use it, but I do repurpose it - to waterproof cycle speedometers, and in cycle puncture repair (rubber solution glues doesn’t stick to cling wrap, so you can wrap a puncture repair in order to compress it.)
j