kate's reuse-it tip no. 1

What to do with those plastic left-over "doggie bag" containers.

It's nice to see more and more restaurants providing plastic doggie-bag containers, in favor of styrofoam ones. But they aren't recyclable. So instead of throwing them away after eating leftovers, I discovered a great way to consolidate dry goods in the pantry using the containers.

I had all these half-empty produce bags of nuts and dried fruits in the pantry, taking up space and making it hard to find the item I needed in a sea of plastic bags. So I washed the doggie-bag containers and emptied the half-empty bags of similar foods into the containers. I put the loose dried fruit -- cherries, cranberries, blueberries -- into one container; small Ziploc bags of separated nuts -- almonds, sunflower seeds, pecans -- in another; and loose raisins in a third. The containers have air-tight lids, so everything should stay fresh. (Besides, does dried fruit really go bad?)

And Doug made a good point -- you could even mix and match to make trail mix!

Now I have three storage containers of dried snacks in the pantry, I can find exactly what I need right away, and there's less clutter on the shelf. And the plastic bags the snacks were packaged in went in the plastic-bag recycling, since plastic produce bags and zipper bags (with the zip top removed) can be recycled in the bin at the grocery store.

Plus, I saved myself some guilt in not having created excess trash. I threw away two small fruit bags (with aluminum on the inside) and one zip top from a zippered bag.