Plastic storage bags: reuse and recycle

The Los Angeles Times has a blog for just about any topic you can think of. I love their entertainment coverage, but they also have great food, architecture and book content as well. Yesterday in the L.A. at Home blog (billed as covering "design, architecture, gardens, Southern California living") Rene Lynch aka "The Recyclist" posted on her propensity for reusable plastic food storage containers and how she's trying to be more conscious of her use of plastic zip-top bags which are incredible easy to use and even easier to throw away.

Of course, like most people who read articles on the Internet, I've heard about of all those hard to pronounce chemicals that make up the plastic containers and bags and theoretically leach into our food, especially when heated, and then do all sorts of imagined bad things to our bodies. Maybe it's a conspiracy, but I've never read any actual authoritative proof that says these plastics are bad for you. So I use, and reuse, plastic bags until they break.

I usually buy a small quantity of quart and gallon sized bags once every six to eight months, and use them for food, travel and other organizational purposes with thorough washing and dryings in between. These things are sturdy as well as incredibly useful.

Check out her post and the comments. For some reason this topic always raises a lot of opinions. What do you do about food storage and seductively handy zip-top bags?

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by suavehouse113
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com