Save the tub! It could save your socks.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Reducing the amount of plastic you bring home is reasonably easy when you first start to paying attention to it. As those of you participating in this month's plastic-free challenge may have found, once you decide to cut back, you find all sorts of plastic that can easily be left out of your lifestyle.

But sooner or later things start getting tougher. I generate only a modest amount of plastic each week. But completely avoiding plastic, particularly in food packaging, is a challenge even for me. Rather than obsess over it, I do my best to find some use for every scrap of plastic that I can't steer clear of. This follows the principle of reduce-reuse-recycle, with recycling being the final step. But of course my nickel-pinching soul also likes getting all the use I can think of out of anything, to save having to buy something else.

So here are some suggestions for plastic reuse that I think you'll find helpful, both from an ecological and frugal point of view. Ecofrugal? Frugological? To me, it's just good sense.

Plastic Bags

Like many of you, I avoid acquiring disposable shopping bags and produce/bakery bags by taking my own reusable ones with me whenever I shop. And though I cook from scratch much of the time and generally don't buy processed foods, I still end up with a steady stream of plastic bags that come filled with frozen veggies, bread, prebagged bulk grains and pastas, cereals, cookies, and other foods (for loose bulk grains, I suggest using fine polyester mesh bags such as these). Before I bring plastic bags to the recycling bin at the supermarket, I always save a few to use to pack dry foods like sandwiches and snacks in lunch boxes. The stiffer plastic bags in some cereal boxes can be pulled apart at the seams to make a rectangle of tough plastic, which can be used to wrap blocks of frozen food (you freeze the food first in a glass container, remove it by setting the jar in a dish of warm water for a few minutes, then wrap it with the heavy plastic, sealing the bundle with freezer tape). This frees up storage containers, and makes it easier to pack a full freezer. Being leery of what may leach out of plastic bags and into my food, I avoid putting warm or hot food into them, NEVER heat food in the microwave in them, and recycle the plastic as soon as it starts looking scratched or worn.

Zip-Top Bags

I confess: When it comes to plastic, this is my my Achilles heel. These are the only disposable plastic product I have continued to buy in recent years. I fear I’m far too fond of these useful items to give them up comepletely. What I have done is cut back on how many of them I use. And I reuse them as many times as possible, to save money and also delay buying new ones. It's easy; just rinse them in warm, soapy water, and hang them on the line with clothespins. Or make a drying rack with a handful of wooden chopsticks stuck in an empty mug. When they finally wear out, you can—according to the Ziploc company itself—recycle clean, dry bags in the shopping bag recycling bin at your local supermarket.

If using a biobased version seems better to you, Pridegreen makes biodegradable zip-top bags in a variety of sizes. But know that they're only biodegradable if your garbage hauler collects kitchen waste to take to an industrial composting center. Otherwise, they will end up in a landfill.