My mother-in-law washed and reused all her bread bags. My mother would reuse them as well, but just shake out the crumbs.Grandma used to bake bread a couple times a week. She kept the bread in a bread holder, something like this....
No need for a plastic bread wrapper with her homemade bread. And, IIRC, her homemade bread did not have any preservatives in it so we had to eat it up in a few days. Putting her bread into a plastic bag would not have prolonged the life of the bread. Or, at least I don't think it would.
Having said that, if you need a plastic wrapper for your homemade bread, why not just buy a commercial loaf of bread of the size/shape of your homemade bread and then reuse that plastic bag for your bread? Last time I bought a loaf of bread at WalMart, it was about $1.00 for the house brand. Anyway, you might as well eat the bread and reuse the plastic bag.
My grandparents lived through the Great Depression. They washed and reused almost all their plastic bags instead of throwing them away. It was their way of life. The plastic bag was only thrown out if it ripped or tore and was no longer usable.
My Dear Wife and I are not in sync in reusing plastic bags. I don't mind saving those bags for reuse. She will only consider using a plastic bag once and then throwing it away. There will be no washing plastic bags in her kitchen. For me, reusing plastic bags is both a way to save some small amount of money, but perhaps more importantly, it reduces the amount of plastics that continue to pollute our world. So, I appreciate your desire to reuse plastic bags.
On a more positive note, we are in agreement on reusing the plastic containers we get our sliced ham in from the store.
I just peel off the top label and we reuse those containers for leftovers. They are great in the refrigerator because they stack so nicely. Also, since they are not round, there is less wasted space. They also work great in the freezer, but sometimes the plastic might crack if you bump it around. No big deal, if they crack we just toss it out at that time.
I think I already mentioned it, but I use brown masking tape as a label and write the date and what is inside the container using a black Sharpie marker. Helps us to use up our oldest leftovers and/or decide to give it to the chickens at a later date. If you have good refrigerator management, you probably don't need labels and such. But we tend to have things get shoved to the back of the fridge and then forgotten. We could do better, but the labels on the containers of leftovers have helped.
I rinse out Zip bags and reuse them if they're not greasy. I line my wastebaskets with plastic grocery bags. Grocery bags also work great for pet clean up, either cat box or outside dog scooping. And when I send packages through the mail, bunched up grocery bags make great padding.
Wondering if it will be cheaper in the long run to own an electric car or a gas car? I really like the idea of using solar panels to recharge the electric car, but I don't live in a sun state. Also, from what I have seen on YouTube, some electric car batteries have to be changed out after 10 years and that often exceeds the value of the car at that point.
