I remember in the Mad Magazine parody of the movie Joe, an upper class couple was having dinner with Joe’s working class family. Joe’s wife suggested that the other woman help her wash dishes. The woman objected, “but these are paper plates”. Joe’s wife replied, “Yeah, I’ll scrape, and you erase.”
I use two types of those bags, actual small ZipLock freezer bags and a larger, flimsier kind that all the delis around here use for dispensing cold cuts.
Ironically, it’s the flimsy free ones that I often re-use. The small freezer bags are almost exclusively for freezing two-serving portions of meatballs and tomato sauce that I buy in quantity from an excellent deli that is somewhat distant from me, and those get stained and are pretty obviously not re-usable. I add the contents to pasta sauce when making spaghetti. It’s hard to find tasty, high quality meatballs!
The larger flimsier bags from delis have a zipper-style closure and are perfect for things like the opened pouches of pre-cooked bacon or breakfast sausages that I pre-bake in the oven and then wrap in plastic so they don’t stick together when frozen. So the bags stay clean. I also use them for freezing miscellaneous food like chicken or pork strips for ramen noodles, and those are not re-used.
Plastic bags of any kind are not eligible for recycling in this community so the used ZipLocks and any contaminated deli-type zipper bags have to go in the garbage. I try to minimize the quantity I use, and re-use the deli ones as much as possible until the zipper thingie breaks.
Yeah, sure. I’ll buy that.
I’ll save & reuse the supermarket deli bags if they wrapped the stuff properly in paper (which typically means just cheese). If I hold it up to the light & it looks clean then it goes into the reuse pile if it looks like there’s anything in it it goes into the trash. The reuse pile gets used to hold leftovers & get tossed after typical use as they’re now dirty. If they’re ‘belt & suspenders’ (ie. the inner container/tin foil held ___ & didn’t spill any juice/sauce) & are still clean they’ll go back into the reuse pile but once dirty they are tossed, I won’t wash them.
We use lots of paper towels to wrap vegetables from the garden. When we use the vegs, we use the towels, which are pretty clean, to wipe out the coffee maker. We have a coffee maker with a grinder, so there are lots of grounds to wipe.
Meat that goes in the freezer is wrapped in plastic wrap and then put in a ZipLoc bag, so those are not dirty and definitely get reused. Any that hold wet stuff get tossed.
Yes! Unless it’s really gross or damaged, I generally wash and reuse.
I reuse clean Ziplocks but rarely, if ever, wash them. I also reuse the type of bags that are inside cereal boxes - the ones that have that heavier coating. They make excellent freezer bags, better than Ziplocks. Less porous.
Not me. One and done.
I reuse a lot of ZipLock bags for the same type of food. If I portion and freeze hamburgers they’ll be individually plastic wrapped and then stored in the bag which I’ll use again for the next batch. Same with sausages and opened packages of other stuff. I’ll use the same bag two or three more times for that. If it’s had direct contact with food it becomes trash. Too hard to clean and too easy to create a leak in the bag which negates it’s whole purpose.
I find ziplocks easy to clean. Just turn it inside out, put it on your hand like a mitten and give it a scrub with hot soapy water. I mostly use them for portioning and freezing things like sausages, burgers, or chicken thighs. For gloopy things like chilli or stew I use plastic takeaway containers or ice cream tubs.
[quote=“kferr, post:50, topic:1004888”]
I find ziplocks easy to clean. Just turn it inside out, put it on your hand like a mitten and give it a scrub with hot soapy water.
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Even easier, as I noted above, is to put them inside out into the dishwasher over a jar or glass whose outside doesn’t really need cleaning. Takes about three seconds. I don’t see how this easy process doesn’t get the bag clean and ready for reuse. On the very rare occasion that there is some remaining matter left on the bag, I can easily spot it and either throw the bag out or run it through the dishwasher again. I don’t understand why this isn’t everyone’s policy: saves money, takes almost no time or effort, prevents waste.
I sometimes reuse aluminum foil if it doesn’t need much cleaning, too.
(I’m in the “I’ll reuse them if they don’t need to be washed” category. I don’t wash plastic bags.)
I re-use only for basically the same “clean” item.
E.g., when we make cookies I put batches in individual (not ziplock) bags and then put those in a sturdy freezer bag (and guess where that goes). That outer bag gets re-used as long as it’s still good.
BTW, I find regular plastic bags too porous for freezer storage. Over time things dry out, get freezer burn or whatever. Hence the outer bag. Once an individual bag is taken out, the cookies are eaten in a short enough time that the quality of the bag doesn’t matter much. And they don’t have to be ziplock, a clothespin works well enough and is easy to use.
I occasionally will reuse ziplock bags but generally I am a one and done consumer.
I find I can throw something into a plastic bag, the flimsy types that we put fruit into at the supermarket, and without troubling to wrap it very well, it is more than sufficient for a few days in the freezer.
It seems like a lot of people are using them a lot more than I do.
I’m sure that’s true. But pretty much nothing in my house goes into the freezer for a few days. If i plan to use it in a few days, it goes on the counter/cupboard or in the fridge.
We reuse them constantly, unless they have been used for something particularly icky. They get used for packing and hiking, and those get reused all the time. We have a special drying stand for washing them after food storage.
BUNCH of thoughts on the replies so far- and thank you one and all !!
Lemme start with Qadgop_the_Mercotan’s post. Readily agreed, we are all teeming cesspools of bacteria, our mouths and guts leading the charge. In the context of re-using any packaging, and for that matter washing implements with hot water and soap, I never think of sterilizing them. They are cleaned off enough that my body can handle whatever is left on them. I happen to lurve doing dishes and I’m pretty enthusiastic about it. I AM a big fan of the concept of the Popeil-Pocket-AutoClave™ 
That said, I know- ZipLoc bags and their ilk aren’t designed for years-long use. The posters who have pointed out that the use of the hot water and soap makes the washing of these bags a negative situation in terms of the planet gives me much cause to pause. Just because it appears to be useful and planet-friendly does not mean it is.
I wash the dishes by hand because our small apartment does not have room for even a crappy apartment-sized dishwasher.
No dogs or cats in the house, so no end-use in feces disposal.
I’m starting to re-think this idea. Maybe throwing them out IS the best thing to do…
How do you accomplish a good seal? Love the idea, wondering about freezer burn and spillage. The cereal boxes we have around the house are almost all family-sized Cheerios. They tear open along the top.
How to reuse?