Mike and I, or I should say I am really over the top when it comes to recycling…well, not not over the top like Ed Begley, Jr, although I really admire his tenaciousness for recycling and his dedication to the environment.  But I do try to do my share, a small, but conscientiousness to keep from using too many plastic bags and recycling commercial glass jars and containers to later resuse.  I reuse them as containers for left over sauces, containers to hold my homemade salsa and also to use as containers for gifts–homemade freezer and refrigerator jams, etc.

Here are a couple of ways I re-use my bags and jars…

I made salsa and stored it a bruschetta jar, strawberry lemon marmalade in an some other food jar, I give fruit to friends and relatives in old newspaper bags and a just opened package of graham cracker is stored in a bread bag…instead of throwing these perfectly clean and fine jars and plastic bags away, I found new uses for them.

Okay, I know this is a bit over the top, but I saw in a Gaiam catalog a dowel type tree used to hang cleaned ziplog bags…what a great idea!  So I went in our yard and looked for an attractive tree branch and found some wood from Mike’s workshop and “voila” my own bag dryer!  It was free!  Now I reuse those bags including those expensive bags (as long as they haven’t been used for greasy or messy foods before).  I just wash them out with a little soap, rinse and dry them overnight and store them for next time.

I remember when my Grandma Libbie Heath used to keep fruit and vegetable bags from the grocery store.  She would just dry them in the dish drainer, draped over just cleaned dishes.  Of course, older Americans really remember what it was like to be very poor and learned to reuse things…little did Grandma Libbie know she was ahead of her time when it comes to taking care of the environment!!!