I know I’ve mentioned several times that I wash my baggies out, much to DH’s embarrassment 🙂 I know it sounds like minutia, but I paid for that baggie, and if I can just spend a couple of seconds washing it out and then use it again, why the heck not?
The system I have come up with is this:
If the baggie had something sticky or messy in it, immediately after use I put some hot water in and swish it around, then dump it out.
All baggies get stuck between the faucet of my sink and the wall until I get a chance to wash them (I came up with this idea after having to throw out a bunch of baggies because they got covered with nastiness lying in the bottom of the sink)
When I have a few that need to be washed, I usually soap up my sponge, turn the water off (conservation you know) and then wash the insides of all the bags. I then turn the water back on and rinse them all thoroughly, just tossing them into a pile in the drain board as I finish them.
Once they are all washed I pull out my “baby bottle drying rack” (which I bought at the thrift store for about $.50 5 years ago!) and place one baggie over each of the prongs. If I have too many bags, then I take some utensils out of the crock on the counter and stick them in among the dishes in the drain board to make more “prongs”. When dry they get tossed back into my kitchen drawer for reuse.
I toss them in with my whites. First I turn them inside out, and just toss them in! After I pull them out, I dry them a bit with a towel so they don’t get the water spot look, and put them on my drying rack.
If I wash them by hand, I use the same method you do.
My husband often just reuses the same bags for the same thing- ie he had crackers in this bag yesterday, so he dumps out the crumbs and uses the bag today for crackers.
I’m even lazier — I just turn them inside out, do a quick wash and rinse and then toss them on the [deep] windowsill above the sink to dry. When I turn them inside out, they puff out a bit, so they dry ok like that.
I throw out ones that have had meat in the them, but otherwise I’ll reuse them.
Oh yes- I throw out the meat ones too! Very important!
I wonder…could you run them through the dishwasher, or would that melt them?
There is some contraption available to send bags through the dishwasher. I just soap and rinse. My drying rack is a handfull of chopsticke in a glass jar. Works well. Yup, throw out the meat ones. And, Jenn, your DH is not the only one embarrassed. My DH actively gripes about the baggies.
My husband is an engineer, so he’d probably think your contraption with the chopsticks is pretty cool, Evelyn! I think I have some chopsticks floating around here, so I might just try that!
I come from a family of dedicated bag re-users, many of whom are also outdoorsy types. What do we use as a bag drying rack? A small, twiggy branch stuck in the mouth of an empty beer bottle. Instant conversation starter!
I hope dh logs on and sees this response.
SEE HONEY-IT ISN’T JUST ME!!!!
DH brings home one ziplock bag everyday from work. One of his clients puts her boxed frozen dinner in one and then tosses it in the garbage. He asked her if he could have them instead and now she gives it to him. I wash them, hang them over the utensils in the dish drainer and reuse them. I rewash and reuse them over and over even though they are free to begin with.
Active griping, eh? Hmmmm…..
dh
Don’t try it honey, it won’t change anything. . . .