apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I occasionally do this and just drape them over utensils in my dish drying rack.

I have been wanting to do this for ages and in fact, I finally did it for the first time today! I must confess, I didn't wash out my bag but I washed the apples I put in the old bag when I got home. Shouldn't that be good enough?

well, I keep a nice market bag in the trunk of my car at all times so that I don't need to use the plastic ones at the store. It also keeps me from buying too much, just the essentials, since I only have one.
My mom used to carry a fairly large, market bag that folded up the size of a wallet in her purse at all times... must be an Italian thing since most of my aunts back in Italy still do so... they're always ready to buy some fresh produce or pasta on their way home from work....

I do this and drape over wooden spoons, etc, as Joan A does. You just have to make sure to readjust the bags so pockets of water don't get stuck in there and prolong drying time.

What really bums me out is the amount of plastic that's breaking down and getting into the ocean, causing untold numbers of bird/sea creature/sea mammal deaths, since the animals think that the bags/plastic bits are food. Yuck.

yep - I do this. I drape them over utensils in my drying rack then for final drying, I use magnetic clips and hang them on the side of my fridge. Then, when the coffee is brewing each morning, I roll them up for storage.

I keep a market bag of bags in the car and a small pouch attached to that holds produce bags. That way, when I'm at a market or store, everything is in one place.

I also clean and reuse plastic cutlery, yogurt containers and old film canisters (perfect for salad dressing).

It looks as if you could easily make a plastic bag dryer with chopsticks and some clay. Even easier is to just rest some chopsticks in a cup. That way, you can use the chopsticks for other stuff, and you won't have an unsightly kitchen gadget hanging around. I could never understand why they actially sold these things. What an unfortunate waste of wood (and money).

I go to a separate place for my produce, and I really try to use no produce bags unless they're necessary (really damp stuff, etc). But apples, oranges, potatoes--especially if you're going to wash them--can do just fine w/o their own little bag. They're going in one big (re-usable) grocery bag anyway.

The ones I do need to take, I don't really rinse out, but I let them dry and use them to take my lunch to work in.

Hippies?! Anyway...

I use one of the above racks -works well.

I suggest popping a yogurt lid under it to protect the wood from the slight puddle that may result underneath. The base is exactly lid sized.

I use one of these and I'll confess that I love it, even though I thought it was just an extra thing at first. But I put away all my utensils and have a pretty clear countertop, so I was draping my bags over the soap dispenser or any random surface, and I kept having to move them around because they weren't drying quickly enough. This has helped me keep my counter clear and the bags out of the way.

This gadget costs 19 dollars! When you've washed the bags you still couldn't use them for food use. This idea has just passes me by. Like ironing socks.

Why can't you reuse them for food?

We always bring our own shopping bags, but when we need to take a small plastic bag for lettuce or something, we wash and reuse. Only we have to dry them by sticking them to the fridge with a magnet inside, because our kitty chews plastic bags.

I reuse my plastic ziplock bags.

i don't bag produce separately unless i really need to. then i used reused plastic bags, reused paper bags or cloth bags as much as possible. and yes, i have one of those dryer racks. it seemed extravagant and silly at the time, but it was an improvement over a plastic bag clothes line.

(lesley, good to know my little princess isn't the only cat to eat plastic bags.)

My mom does this, but she makes sure to get the bags with labels, because no matter how hard you wash them, smelly stuff stays.

I have had my onion bag for about 6 weeks.

Yay hippies!!

I wash out the produce bags and reuse them for my lunches, and also wash out my ziplock bags if they aren't too yucky. And yeah, they get draped over whatever will keep them open enough to dry so this is definately a consideration. Although I did like the chopsticks in a cup idea...

I use these particularly for the green produce bags, which are meant to be reused (the ones now called Debbie Meyer's green bags, which used to be Evert-fresh bags). I also reuse plastic sandwich bags. I see no reason they can't be reused when they are rinsed properly.

There is a contraption that you can use in a dishwasher for the same purpose. If what you put in the bag is greasy or may have some bad bacteria then this might be the ticket.