Hey, so this is going to be a great post on those newfangled “reusable” plastic ziploc bags. Waitaminute… you say plastic ziploc bags have ALWAYS been reusable?

Yep.

Well, I’m going to be the first to admit that I’ve unnecessarily thrown away resealable plastic bags in the past. It’s usually chalked up to complete laziness. As a Cheaplander I really shouldn’t overlook these opportunities to save money if I can avoid it. Yeah, I’m trying to change my ways.

I know a lot of the green eco-folks out there are going to say - why buy plastic ziploc bags anyhow? That might save you money, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve taken home a doggie bag of food from a party or family gathering in a ziploc. Instead of tossing it out, why not use the heck out of it before recycling it? Sounds thrifty to me.

There’s nothing glamorous about reusing a bag - you just do it. However, I’ve come up against two general obstacles that threaten my bagworthiness. The first is that these bags tend to pick up odors eventually and stain, especially when you put strong smelling foods in them. The second is that it’s sort of a pain to wash and dry the bags.

I deal with the first issue by trying to label the bags and then only storing the stronger smelling foods in particular ones. You know that little rectangle area they have on the bag that you can write on? Use it. Take a permanent marker and write down what’s in the bag before tossing it in the freezer. I sometimes write down more general labels instead of specific things.

For instance, I put “Dry Goods” on bags that are meant for things like bread crumbs, rice and dry pasta. I put “Meat” on bags that are meant for frozen meats in order to avoid cross-contamination as much as possible. You can put the date too if you’d like - just write it small in the corner so you can cross it out and write in a new date when you reuse it again.

Spaghetti, curry and other wet foods (make sure to label those as such) will definitely shorten the life of the bag - but that’s OK. It’s always better to reuse it once instead just tossing it. Also, some bags are not meant to go in the freezer - you can tell by the thickness of the plastic. I’ve had trouble with these being perforated by sharp edges of food in the freezer. When a bag picks up so much odor (or color) from food or from being in the freezer, it’s time to recyle it.

As to the problem of cleaning out, washing and drying ziploc bags, this seems to be the major reason people don’t save them. It’s just too much effort - I know because it happens to me all the time. Try to immediately clean, wash and dry the bags as soon as you remove the contents.

For dry foods, it’s rather easy to just rinse the bag out. For other smellier foods, use normal dishwashing soap. What I like to do is turn the bag inside-out to make it easier to wash the inside surface. Make sure to rinse all the soap off and then hang it up to dry. Drying the bags inside-out is also much quicker. What I like to do is get an office binder clip and use that to hang up several bags at once over the sink so the water drips off. That’s what I did in the picture above. If you don’t have a hook to hang the binder clip on, get an ordinary paper clip, unbend it and use that to hook the binder clip to something (in my case, the curtain rod above the window).

Oh, by the way - I know people like Alton Brown love to use Ziploc bags as a pastry bag tool to “pipe” mousse and other things. The problem is that once you cut the bottom tip off the bag - what are you going to do with it? I guess it’s fine if you’re reusing the bag anyhow, but I’d never do that with a new bag.