Plastic bags

My dish drying rack looks like a jelly fish.  Or maybe a micro version of the Giant Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean.

My parents were horrified when they found out that we wash and reuse our baggies.  We don't do it because we're poor, or cheap (though, admittedly, we are quite frugal people).  We do it because plastic bags can be used more than once and they cannot be recycled without the recycle logo on them. 

Why not reuse them until they're good and dead?

The 3 Rs of more sustainable living are Reduce Reuse... and then finally Recycle.  In that order.

We've moved into the Reuse part and are working our way into the Reduce mode when it comes to food bags.  I'm confident that we about 90% into Reduce for shopping bags with only the occasional plastic shopping bag coming home from anywhere.

Our goal is to use no plastic shopping bags at all.  We rarely get bags at the grocery store for anything, unless it's something like grapes where you need a bag.  I recently bought the fabric to make reusable produce bags like these.  I'll show them to you when I get off my butt and actually make them.  I don't mind spending a few extra pennies for the little bit of added weight of a cloth bag compared to a plastic one.

There are lots of products on the market to use as alternatives to plastic bags:

• Insulated cotton/wool coolers
• Wrap-n-mat
• Things on etsy (which make me just want to make my own)

Do you use an alternative to plastic zipper bags?  What are your thoughts?  Some of the challenges are weight (glass) or microwave-ability (metal or resin).  How do you overcome these obstacles?